Santa Fe Woman's Club & Library Association

SUPPORTING COMMUNITY NEEDS

Honored October, 2003

Santa Fe Woman's Club & Library Association

The spacious building in which today's Living Treasures ceremony is being celebrated is home to one of this community's most enduring, most effective, most generous, most visionary, most far-reaching and most significant civic-minded organizations: the Santa Fe Woman's Club. Normally this organization does its endless good work quietly and modestly, behind the scenes. Yet today it must take a turn in the spotlight—for today the Santa Fe Woman's Club officially is declared a Santa Fe Living Treasure.

From the day of its founding—July 9, 1892—the organization has been dedicated to making Santa Fe a better place. Its stated purpose was "to make civic improvements and establish a library"—and off it set at once to accomplish those goals. In 1894 the Woman's Club became "Guardian of the Plaza," in a self-appointed mission to prevent the ancient hub of the community from falling into decay and ruin. Members repaired the benches, fertilized the grass, filled the holes, built a picket fence and filled the horse troughs. It all was paid off by January 1, 1895—and then came the library project.