The Lakeside Club of Manistee
Motto: In all things, supreme excellence
Flower : Carnation Color: Yellow
The Lakeside Club of Manistee was organized in 1885 with a membership of twenty women. The purpose of the club upon its establishment was intellectual and social culture. The Salt City of Inland Seas, the 1899 Anniversary Number of the Manistee Daily News, indicates that “the programs during the first year consisted of music and reading aloud by one member, while the others piled the needle industriously on fancy work to be sold at a fair, the proceeds to be devoted in the purchase of books, with the hope that in time a women library association might be the result.”
At the turn of the century came Andrew Carnegie’s program for the building of educational buildings if the city would provide the continued operational funding. The Carnegie Foundation allotted $35,000 for construction. In 1902 the Lakeside Club joined forces with the local literary society to campaign build a library in Manistee. Together they raised the money to purchase the land and the city agreed to provide the operating funds. They secured the funding through the Andrew Carnegie Foundation. George L Harvey, an architect from Port Huron, designed the Manistee County Library. The building with it’s grand entrance pavilion reflects Beaux Arts Classicism and is listed in the National Registry of Historical Places.
The Club’s assistance with fundraising for the Library continues today. For many years now their main fundraiser is the annual Home and Garden Tour that is held the third Saturday of July each year.
Regular meetings held on the first Thursday of the month, September through June, with the exception of January. Board meetings are held at the Library clubroom on the fourth Thursday of each month at 10:15 am.