Tomah Public Library
716 Superior Avenue
Tomah, Wisconsin 54660-2045
608/374-7470

Open to the public during business hours.

Claude & Starck, 1916

If Louis Sullivan was known for designing banks, the Madison, Wisconsin firm of Claude & Starck developed a reuptation for libraries in the upper Midwest and Washington state. Unlike the typical Sullivanesque ornament, which is made of glazed terra cotta, the Tomah library’s frieze is made of staff, a mixture of gypsum and fiber. When the library outgrew the original building, a sympathetic addition by Potter, Lawson and Pawlowsky of Madison was constructed in 1980.

Percy Bentley’s 1912 Fix House is six blocks south and one block east.

References
• Visser, Kristin. Frank Lloyd Wright & the Prairie School in Wisconsin. Madison, Wis.: Prairie Oak Press, 1998 (Second Edition), p. 213-5.

http://www.steinerag.com/flw/Artifact%20Pages/PhHoquiamLib.htm