Catoosa County Library History | TheLibrary@Catoosa

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The Library’s History

The Ringgold Public Library in Ringgold, Georgia, was established in 1937 under the auspices of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). It was located upstairs in the old Methodist parsonage until it was moved to the basement of the new courthouse in 1938. When the county agent moved from the courthouse to the new building across the street, the library moved to the basement where it remained until 1971. Early librarians were Mrs. Emma Byrd, Mrs. Addie Hullender, Miss Carrie Green, Miss May Denning, and Miss Mildred Ward. In the spring of 1971, the library moved to a new building near Ringgold High School. At the same time the Fort Oglethorpe Library in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, was occupying a new building.

Ringgold, Georgia, is located just minutes south of Chattanooga, Tennessee. The library serves the Catoosa County communities of Ringgold and Ft. Oglethorpe. This beautiful Northwest Georgia area is probably best known for the Civil War Battle of Chickamauga.

In 1999, a new library building located in the Benton Place Campus was completed. The building was a $3 million dollar project paid for with SPLOST funds. The Ringgold and Fort Oglethorpe libraries were supposed to close and merge into a single county library. The merger was not completed until June of 2004 when the Ringgold Library location closed. In 2008 the library became a member of PINES (Public Information Network for Electronic Services), a “borderless library” system that allows PINES card holders free access to books and other materials in more than 280 library branches and affiliated service locations throughout the state. This allows our patrons to borrow from a shared collection of over 10 million books that are delivered to your home library, free of charge.