{"nrhp_refnum":"80003579","name":"Union Library Company","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"243 S. York Rd.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Hatboro","county":"Montgomery County","state":"PA","lat":40.173364485000036,"lon":-75.10722516799996,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1980-11-20","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Education","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A two-and-a-half-story rectangular library building of the Union Library Company in Hatboro, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, built in 1851 with a colonnaded Greek Revival front porch.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the building is an excellent example of Greek Revival architecture, with a temple-like form chosen to express purity, education and antiquity. It also stresses the company's age, describing it as one of the oldest such institutions in Pennsylvania and the second oldest operating under its original charter.","narrative":"Built in 1851 in Hatboro, the Union Library Company building is a two-and-a-half-story stone structure with stucco walls, a colonnade of four Doric columns and a gable roof with full pediments. Its main entrance sits centrally in the gable end. The library company was founded in the 1750s, when Hatboro was a farming village of about fifteen homes on Old York Road, a stagecoach route between Philadelphia and New York. Its shareholder plan followed a model associated with Benjamin Franklin. Its books moved eleven times during its first thirty years before the company gained a permanent home. Funds left by director Nathan Hold in 1844, totaling 3,000 dollars, paid for a one-acre lot and the building. The directors took the Mercantile Library in Philadelphia as their model, a temple-form building that was demolished in 1925. The building is significant as a Greek Revival design and as the home of a long-running institution of learning.","period_of_significance":"1755-1851","architect_builder":"Edwin Mitchell, John Sloan (architect); Joseph B. Yerkes (builder)","architectural_style":"Greek Revival","criteria":[],"status_note":null,"vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:33.64652-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_PA/80003579.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/80003579/a071411462-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/80003579/a071411462-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Shuvaev","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Union_Library_Company_01.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Shuvaev</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Union_Library_Company_01.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71995833","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Library_Company","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7885819"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/pennsylvania/montgomery-county/union-library-company-80003579/"}