Rural Library and Yakima Library
become Yakima Valley Regional Library

By 1935 Yakima, Sunnyside, Wapato, Selah, Buena, Toppenish, and Granger had all established city libraries. In spite of a world war and global depression, those early libraries were popular and expanded rapidly. But there were still many farms and ranches with no access to a library. In 1944 voters approved the Rural Library Association measure, designed to take library services out to the rural areas of the county. The 1940's saw similar rural library systems created all over the western United States. Follow the links below to learn how this new type of library service developed in rural Yakima County.

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