Johnson Public Library in Johnson, Vermont has just started a new chapter.
Built in the early 1900s, the building has flooded more times than Johnson town administrator Thomas Galinat can count.
In the last two years alone, it has been damaged in three different flood events, with a particularly devastating moment in July 2023, when 9 feet of water filled the building.
“Everyone did everything they could to move the books throughout the night,” Galinat told Vermont Public. “And then once the water level got high enough, there was nothing more you could do.”
This kind of devastation goes back generations.
In 1927, the building flooded and the library’s entire collection was destroyed, according to reporting from Vermont Public.
Finally, in early 2024, a long-debated but far-fetched idea started falling into place. The city would physically pick up the library and move it out of its flood zone.
As the only historic Georgian revival-style building in the city, the library’s building holds significance.
And according to a 2017 engineering study, if the building were to stay in the same place, Galinat said, the city would have to do hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of management to keep it — and its entire basement storage — from sinking.
“When the pipe dream that is so outrageous becomes the solution, it tells you how dire the situation is,” Galinat told Vermont Public.
The city rallied. They were determined to pick up the historic building and move it out of the danger zone.
“We had partners and husbands and wives and friends,” Galinat told Vermont Public. “People were measuring the street, the width between poles and street lights, and contractors were called and estimates were given, and in two weeks, the most perfect application for any grant I've ever seen was put together by this really wonderful collaboration.”
Their efforts paid off. Last fall, Johnson received about $1.6 million through a grant program from the U.S. Department of the Treasury Capital Projects Fund, as well as funding from the Vermont Department of Libraries.
And last Saturday — April 26 — was moving day.
Employing 28 bucket trucks, 60 to 70 construction workers, a dozen utility workers, four police cruisers, two ambulances, and a fire truck, the community rolled the 119-ton library about a half-mile through town.
Making its way across the river, and over a bridge, the library and its stewards moved under the cover of darkness overnight.
Jessica Bickford, a former Johnson Library Trustee, told Vermont Public that after realizing the funding could be made available for this project, leaders agreed: “Let’s try this, and see where it goes.”
Donning a hard hat and traffic vest during the midnight move, Bickford smiled: “And tonight, it’s going!”
After traveling across the downtown section of a two-lane state highway, Route 15, Johnson Public Library is now re-settled between Johnson Elementary School and Legion Field.
The only damage the building — or the town — took was a sawed-off corner of the roof that had trouble turning the first corner of the journey, and four trees that were removed for the big roll.
However, one beloved crabapple tree was also relocated to a nearby arboretum. And the corner of the library will remain as-is, Galinat said — a memento of the big move.
“We are not just jacking up and rolling the physical building down the street … we are creating a new heart of Johnson that is free from the risk of flooding,” Galinat wrote in a press release shared by VT Digger. “This is a message for Johnson, and all of Vermont, it is time to do something different.”
Along with the volunteers who advocated for the move, local youth also painted the boards protecting the library’s windows during the trip.
One of the signs sums it all up. “Library magic,” it reads.
Header image courtesy of Vermont Public Library
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