The Hosmer Community Library, originally known as the Thirty-Sixth Street Branch Library, is a branch library of the Minneapolis Public Library

Minneapolis Public Library

The Minneapolis Public Library and Information Center was a library system serving the residents of Minneapolis, Minnesota in the United States. It was founded as the publicly traded Minneapolis Athenæum in 1860 and became a free public library in 1885 founded by T. B. Walker...

 system located in the Central neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...

. It was built in 1916 during a period of rapid immigration into Minneapolis. At the time it was built, the library was in a sparsely developed Scandinavia

Scandinavia

Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...

n neighborhood and one block away from the since-demolished Central High School. The library was built under the leadership of librarian Gratia Countryman

Gratia Countryman

Gratia Alta Countryman was a nationally-known librarian who led the Minneapolis Public Library from 1904 to 1936. She was the daughter of immigrant farmers Alta and Levi Countryman. She pioneered many ways to make the library more accessible and user-friendly to all of the city's residents,...

 and financed with support from the Carnegie Corporation. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

 in 2000.

The building is in the Collegiate Gothic style, with polygonal towers on either side of the main entrance, a crenellated parapet

Parapet

A parapet is a wall-like barrier at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony or other structure. Where extending above a roof, it may simply be the portion of an exterior wall that continues above the line of the roof surface, or may be a continuation of a vertical feature beneath the roof such as a...

, and terra cotta

Terra cotta

Terracotta, Terra cotta or Terra-cotta is a clay-based unglazed ceramic, although the term can also be applied to glazed ceramics where the fired body is porous and red in color...

trim.