Name library for McGuffey, two urge board

By HAROLD GWIN

VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — Richard Scarsella and Harry Meshel think it would be appropriate to name the new East Side branch of the Public Library of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley after a famed local educator.

Construction is about to begin on the $2.1 million facility, and it should bear the name of William Holmes McGuffey, they told the library’s board of trustees recently.

McGuffey, author of the famed McGuffey Eclectic Readers that served as the reading primer of choice in the United States for decades, grew up in Coitsville Township near the city’s East Side and went on to fame as an educator, with his books earning him the unofficial title of “America’s Schoolmaster.”

Scarsella, president of the William Holmes McGuffey Historical Society, and Meshel, former state senator and a 40-year member of the historical society, urged the board to name the new facility after the educator.

People from the Coitsville area will most likely use the new library branch, Scarsella said, suggesting that, if the board doesn’t prefer to use the whole name, it might consider calling the new facility the McGuffey Heights Library.

The area around McGuffey Plaza is known as McGuffey Heights, and the new library is close to the original McGuffey homestead, he said.

Meshel attended the last McGuffey school in the city as a child. He referred to McGuffey as “an extraordinary person” and “one of the singular people in education in this nation.”

The tenets of his teaching — honesty, dedication to service, hard work and learning — are more important than ever, Meshel said.

Dr. David Ritchie, library board president, said the issue has been taken under advisement.

He said the library board doesn’t normally name facilities for individuals but prefers to name them after the areas in which they are located.

Scarsella pointed out the main library on Wick Avenue bears the name “Reuben McMillan Free Library” carved in stone.

McMillan was a city schools superintendent who was instrumental in the 1880 creation of the Youngstown Library Association, a forerunner to today’s Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County. He retired from the schools in 1886 but stayed on as president of the library board of trustees until 1890.

After his death, the association’s name was changed to the Reuben McMillan Free Library Association in 1898 in his honor.

The historical society also has some outside support for its proposal.

The Northeast Homeowners and Concerned Citizens Association in the city’s 1st and 2nd Wards passed a resolution urging the library’s trustee board to name the new East Side facility for McGuffey.

The historical society has had some recent success in getting other structures named for McGuffey.

It persuaded the Mahoning County commissioners to name a bridge that spans Crab Creek linking the city’s North and East sides as the William Holmes McGuffey Memorial Bridge last summer. In December, the society persuaded the city school board to rename West Elementary School as William Holmes McGuffey Elementary School.

gwin@vindy.com