Slater Library
library in Griswold, Connecticut, United States
The Slater Library is the public library of Griswold, Connecticut. It is located in a historic building at 26 Main Street in the borough of Jewett City.
The Romanesque Revival building was constructed in 1884 with funds donated by John Fox Slater, a New England industrialist and philanthropist. The original building was designed by Stephen C. Earle, and was nearly doubled in size in 1930 with the addition of the Fanning Annex, designed by the Norwich firm of Cudworth & Thompson, and funded by a bequest from local businessman David Hale Fanning.
The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.
Architecture
The library is a 1+1⁄2-story structure, built out of granite with brownstone trim, all finished with a rough quarry exterior. It is roughly rectangular in shape, with a projecting tower at the front right, and a hip roof from which hipped dormers project. The 1930 addition nearly doubles the size of the original building, and creates an L shape at the rear; it is built using similar materials. Most windows are set in rounded-arch openings with brownstone framing, with a brownstone stringcourse at the base of the arched section. Similar stringcourses and water tables also run below and at the base of the windows.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Slater Library” is library in Griswold, Connecticut, United States. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Slater, Library and library, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “library in Griswold, Connecticut, United States” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q14715112. The first chronological checks are 1884, 1930 and 2002.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Slater Library”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Slater Library primary sources, Slater Library archive and Slater research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Slater Library”?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Slater Library” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.