Craigmont Community Library

HOURS
Tue.           9:30 - 2:30
Wed.      11:30 - 4:30
Thu.           9:30 - 2:30

(208) 924-5510
craigmont.library@prld.org
112 W. Main St.
PO Box 191, Craigmont, ID 83523
 TJ Breeze
Branch Manager
Come in and browse our books for all ages, audiobooks (CD and MP3), and movies (DVD and Blu-Ray).

We also offer two computer stations for public internet access and WiFi that can be used any time of day.
Interested in supporting the library through volunteering and fund raising?
Join our Friends of the Library Group!

We meet on the 3rd Thursday of the month at 2:30p in the library. We have one major fundraiser a year, our Books & Bites Sale on the 1st Saturday in May in conjunction with the City-Wide Yard Sale. Our goal is to install all new, cleverly designed book shelves in our library. We are always accepting gently used books for our annual sale.

Book Club
Aug. 10 at 2:30p in the library

The Deep Dark: Disaster and Redemption in America's Richest Silver Mine
by Gregg Olsen
For nearly a century, Kellogg, Idaho, was home to America’s richest silver mine, Sunshine Mine. Mining there, as everywhere, was not an easy life, but regardless of the risk, there was something about being underground, the lure of hitting a deep vein of silver. The promise of good money and the intense bonds of friendship brought men back year after year. Mining is about being a man and a fighter in a job where tomorrow always brings the hope of a big score.

On May 2, 1972, 174 miners entered Sunshine Mine on their daily quest for silver. Aboveground, safety engineer Bob Launhardt sat in his office, filing his usual mountain of federal and state paperwork. From his office window he could see the air shafts that fed fresh air into the mine, more than a mile below the surface. The air shafts usually emitted only tiny coughs of exhaust; unlike dangerously combustible coal mines, Sunshine was a fireproof hardrock mine, nothing but cold, dripping wet stone. There were many safety concerns at Sunshine, but fire wasn’t one of them. The men and the company swore the mine was unburnable, so when thick black smoke began pouring from one of the air shafts, Launhardt was as amazed as he was alarmed.

When the alarm sounded, less than half of the dayshift was able to return to the surface. The others were trapped underground, too deep in the mine to escape. Scores of miners died almost immediately, frozen in place as they drilled, ate lunch, napped, or chatted. No one knew what was burning or where the smoke had come from. But in one of the deepest corners of the mine, Ron Flory and Tom Wilkinson were left alone and in total darkness, surviving off a trickle of fresh air from a borehole.

The miners’ families waited and prayed, while Launhardt, reeling from the shock of losing so many men on his watch, refused to close up the mine or give up the search until he could be sure that no one was left underground.

In The Deep Dark, Gregg Olsen looks beyond the intensely suspenseful story of the fire and rescue to the wounded heart of Kellogg, a quintessential company town that has never recovered from its loss. A vivid and haunting chapter in the history of working-class America, this is one of the great rescue stories of the twentieth century.
Our new member, Shelley Kuther a local history buff and key member of the Ilo-Volmer Historical Society, has located some information on a man who attended school here in Craigmont for a time and was one of the victims of the fire.

Sponsored by Greater Craigmont Area Chamber of Commerce and the Friends of the Craigmont Library...

Summer Reading Program

Sign up at the library is now open!
FREE for kids in K-8. (Kids in K-6 got info packets at school.)

June 13 @ 2:30 p.m. - LEGOs with Edison Robots
June 20 @ 3:30 p.m. - Exploring Physics with Idaho PBS (levers, ramps, rolling objects)
July 19 @ 10 a.m. - Build a bird house @ TriCo
Aug. 21 @ 10:15 a.m. - view solar eclipse at Highland Elementary School (free glasses)
Aug. 21 @ 4 p.m. - Pizza and bowling party at Prairie Imperial Bowl
Teen and Adult Reading Bingo!  Bingo cards are available now at the Craigmont Library and participants can play them through August 31st.  Each bingo is good for one entry to our prize drawing and a blackout will get you 5 entries.  Prizes will be gift certificates to local businesses.  Hurry in to pick yours up now!