In 1923, the University of Wyoming reached a milestone with the opening of the three-story Library Building, now known as the Aven Nelson Memorial Building. More than 50,000 volumes and over 400 periodical subscriptions were carried from Old Main in a move that brought the University’s library materials under one roof. The building quickly became a hub of campus activity, not only housing the main Library but also the History, English, and ancient language departments, as well as the College of Law and its own law library.
As the collection grew, so did the Library’s aspirations. In 1929, Mary E. Marks stepped into the role of Head Librarian, guiding the Library into a new phase of development. Under her leadership, the Library designated the Hebard Room in 1932 to honor Grace Raymond Hebard and her deep commitment to documenting Wyoming and the West. After Hebard’s death in 1936, her extensive collection of books, manuscripts, and artifacts enriched this special collection. These materials that evolved into the modern Hebard Collection within the Libraries and the American Heritage Center.
However, physical limitations continued to prove troublesome. In 1939, Marks proposed a new building to replace the increasingly strained facility, but the idea never came to fruition. By 1941, The Branding Iron criticized cramped rooms, the lack of an elevator, and other building and staff constraints. A team of six librarians, one stenographer, and a handful of student workers struggled to meet the growing demands of the University.
In the years that followed, the Library continued to take on new responsibilities despite its crowded quarters. In 1945, the University created the University Archives within the Library to manage the influx of organizational records and personal papers being entrusted to the institution. Four years later, in 1949, N. Orwin Rush was appointed Director of Libraries, stepping into leadership just as the University was poised for a dramatic period of growth.
The 1950s ushered in sweeping changes across campus. An expanding student population, combined with national pressures to prioritize academic excellence during the Cold War, made the need for a new library increasingly urgent. In 1950, University President George Duke Humphrey and the Board of Trustees established a planning committee for a new facility, though the effort stalled when the state legislature rejected the University’s request for construction funds in 1951. The turning point emerged in 1954 when William Robertson Coe, a financier and philanthropist, donated $750,000 to support a new library and American Studies building. The Trustees hailed it as one of the most significant contributions ever made to the preservation of American heritage. A year later, the state legislature matched Coe’s gift, and Coe himself added a further $1.8 million bequest. Altogether, Coe’s gifts and pledges between 1951 and 1961 amounted to nearly four million dollars, the largest private support the University had ever received.
This era unfolded against the backdrop of the early Cold War, when anxieties about subversion touched campuses nationwide. The University of Wyoming itself became embroiled in a textbook investigation in 1947–48, part of a broader national wave of scrutiny. President Humphrey’s handling of the matter and his relationship with Coe, who was outspoken in his anti-Communist views, deepened the ties that ultimately supported the library project. Yet the controversy also provoked a strong defense of academic freedom from faculty, national observers, and the American Library Association. By the mid-1950s, the University reaffirmed its commitment to the free exchange of ideas, an ethos that would guide its libraries as they prepared to move into a new era.
In 1956, construction began on the William Robertson Coe Library at the corner of 13th and Ivinson. The design, a modular, flexible style that reflected architectural trends of the era, was created by Eliot and Clinton Hitchcock in partnership with the Porter and Porter firm. The Hitchcock brothers followed in the footsteps of their father, architect Wilbur Hitchcock, who had designed the original 1923 Library Building. With an eye toward the future, the new library was planned to include seating for nine hundred students, room for half a million books, and open reading rooms that encouraged browsing and quiet study. During this period, the Libraries also assumed responsibility for the Geology departmental library in the S.H. Knight Building, helping establish a more robust disciplinary network across campus.
The construction of Coe Library signaled not just a new building, but a significant reimagining of the Library’s role in supporting scholarship, teaching, and intellectual exploration across the University. It marked the end of one chapter and the beginning of another that would shape the Library’s future for generations.
