P.O. Box 211 Petersburg, KY 41080
The first library to serve the public of Boone County.
Petersburg is a beautiful small town on the Ohio river 12 miles south of Cincinnati, Ohio. Today Petersburg is very much a neighborhood community. However, throughout the 19th and at the turn of the 20th century it was a very busy town. The Boone County Distillery was located here for over 60 years and brought many jobs to people in the area including ones who lived in Lawrenceburg and Aurora Indiana. Ferries and barges were a large part of everyday life. People would take the ferries to work and the barges would haul goods to and from Petersburg.
The Chapin Memorial Library was the first library to serve the public of Boone County. It is a privatley owned library that is open to the public. We have an excellent local history collection.
We have the original Loder diaries which have been microfilmed by the Kentucky Department of Libraries and Archives. The originals, due to their age are not available to the public but we do have photocopies of some of the books. We have a number of books on Kentucky history as well as books by local authors such as Sophia Lloyd, John Uri Lloyd, Anne Stweard and E. Y Chapin. These books because they are rare can not be checked out but you are welcome to read them in the library.
Two of the wonderful things we have are photo albums that were put together for the opening of the library. These books were truly a community effort.
One is titled "Personalities of the Past." Petersburg families donated photographs of their ancestors to the library for future generations to share. The other is a collection of street scenes of Petersburg. You are welcome to browse these in the library. We hope to get some of these photo's online for you soon.