<p>Diane Berry holds a pair of vintage nightgowns that is part of the collecting of antique clothing at the Echo Library.</p>

The city of Echo might be seen as a quaint little historic town today, but when the Echo Public Library was born 100 years ago it was playing a different role.

I think people would be surprised how literate and educated people were, library director and city manager Diane Berry said. There was a lot of business. It was a bustling little community.

Berry has been researching Echo circa 1914 in preparation for the librarys 100th anniversary celebration Monday, and she said Echo was a hopping place in 1914.

Today, the citys population reaches just over 700. When Echo Public Library began the city boasted 800 residents (Berry thinks the number may have been inflated some by farm workers coming into town for weekends).

Newspaper clippings Berry has collected show the library played an important part in a thriving social scene. One 1916 article in the East Oregonian said the Halloween masquerade hosted by the library was the talk of the town, with Mrs. George Coppinger taking the prize for her dress made of burlap and heavily trimmed in beautiful heads of wheat.

Another complimented Echos public library for being the first in the region with carpet.

World War I began in the same year the library opened, and Berry said residents soon became very concerned with reusing and recycling as they faced the threat of shortages caused by the war in Europe.

Even though we (the United States) werent in the war then they were starting to conserve already, Berry said.

Magazine covers, books, clothing, photographs, newspaper clippings, letters and more from 1914 will be on display at Mondays anniversary party to give Echo residents a glimpse of what life was like when the library opened. Berry said shes also looking for donations or loans of historic items from the time period.

Im hoping to get volunteers to bake something that would be in a reception in 1914, but much of it is surprisingly not that different than what we see today, Berry said, noting peanut butter cookies as an example.

One of the biggest draws for the reception will likely be the librarys vintage clothing collection, which has only a few of its 500-plus pieces on display year-round.

Not all of the clothing is from 1914 the collection ranges from a shawl brought over the Oregon Trail in the mid-1800s to dresses and coats from the 1950s  but Berry said it will give people a glimpse of what library patrons might have been wearing at different periods of the librarys life.

One of Berrys favorite dresses is a dark green velvet piece that a historian showed her was skillfully altered from a Civil War-style bustle to a more sleek design for the early 1900s.

The materials and workmanship are so beautiful, she said.

The vintage clothing collection was started by librarians in the 1960s and is currently housed in an upstairs room of the library out of sight of the public. 

Inside the storage room, sumptuous fur coats are mixed in with drab pioneer frocks; modest white night dresses stand in contrast to flapper dresses adorned with a scandalous amount of fringe. Beaded shoes fill a box in the corner and stacks of old-fashioned hat boxes sit on top of a row of portable closets.

A few of the collections finer pieces hang in glass boxes around the library, but Berry said staff and volunteers are sorting through the rest of the collection in preparation for displaying much of it at the librarys centennial celebration.

The reception will be Monday, July 14 at 2 p.m. in the upstairs auditorium of the city hall/library building, 20 S. Bonanza St. The celebration will also double as a chance to welcome America in Bloom judges Jack Clasen and Melanie Menachem-Riggs.

   

Contact Jade McDowell at jmcdowell@eastoregonian.com or 541-564-4536.