• 1905: Former Governor Frank Steunenberg assassinated.
• 1907: William E. Borah elected to Senate. Trial of William D. “Big Bill” Haywood for Steunenberg’s
  assassination becomes Idaho’s “Trial of the Century.”

• February 8, 1910: The Boy Scouts of America is founded.
• May 25, 1910: The only flight taken together by Wilbur and Orville Wright occurs at Huffman Prairie Flying Field in Dayton, Ohio.
• May 30, 1911 – The Indianapolis 500 auto race is run for the first time in Indianapolis, Indiana.
• November 5, 1912: Woodrow Wilson becomes president of the United States.
• July 11, 1914: Babe Ruth makes his major league debut.
• January 25, 1915: Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas A. Watson conduct the first telephone conversation between New York and San Francisco.
• August 25, 1916 – The National Park Service is officially created when President Woodrow Wilson signed legislation from Congress with the mission to protect and preserve the natural lands, historic sites, and wildlife of the system for future generations.
• April 6, 1917: U.S. enters World War I.
• March 19, 1918: Time zones are officially established by an act of the United States Congress with daylight savings time to go into effect on March 31.
• August 1918: The influenza epidemic Spanish flu spans the globe, killing over twenty million worldwide and five hundred and forty-eight thousand people in the United States.
• November 11, 1918: Hostilities in World War I begin to end.
• June 28, 1919: The Treaty of Versailles is signed, ending World War I.

March

THE 1930s

Saturday, March 12 – Adult Makers

• 10:00 am to 12:00 Noon: Mending Morning in the Community Room: Use it up: Wear it out: Make it do: Or do without! was the theme of the 1930s. In that spirit, let’s help you mend those items so you can stretch their use out a little longer. Bring an item in need of repair. We’ll have sewing machines and know how to help you keep them in use.
• 1:00 pm to 3:30 pm: Sewing Circle in the Community Room: Attention crazed cross-stitchers, crafty crocheters, anyone who goes nuts for needlepoint or knitting. Spend the afternoon with us. We’ll sit around and gab in old-time style. We’ll also have lots of giveaways and trades. Have a great chart you’re finished with, extra needles, yarn you lost enthusiasm for? Bring them! Nobody should go home empty handed!

• September 1930: The library closes in order for all the books to be cataloged.  Over 12,000 catalog cards are created.
• November 1931: The library moves to the second floor of the County Courthouse, giving more room for the growing collection.
• March 12, 1932: A theft of $10.90 was taken from the library.  The Rexburg Standard urges all mothers to “investigate and make sure it is not your boy?”
• 1934: The Rexburg Standard reports that 19,640 books were taken out from the library and read during the previous year.
• June 1935: The library reaches their goal of obtaining 5,000 volumes.
• January, 1936: The library expands its hours from 2:00 pm to 6:30 pm every day except Sundays and holidays.
• 1936: Mabel Pratt Warner retires, and Jesse Atkinson becomes the third librarian.
• 1939: The Rexburg Standard advocates the need for a separate building for the public library.

• 1935: Idaho repealed statewide Prohibition.
• 1936: Sun Valley resort established by Union Pacific Railroad. World’s first ski chair lift opened at Sun Valley.
• 1939: Joe Albertson opened his first supermarket in Boise.

• February 18, 1930: American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovers the planet Pluto at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona.
• March 3, 1931: The Star-Spangled Banner, by Francis Scott Key, is approved by President Hoover and Congress as the national anthem.
• March 1, 1932: The infant son of Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., is kidnaped. He is found dead on May 12 not far from his home in Hopewell, New Jersey. Three years later, on February 13, 1935, Bruno Hauptmann was found guilty of the crime.
• November 8, 1932: Democratic challenger Franklin D. Roosevelt defeats incumbent President Hoover in the presidential election.
• March 9 – June 16, 1933: The New Deal social and economic programs are passed by the United States Congress.
• October 17, 1933: Albert Einstein arrives in the United States as a fugitive from Nazi Germany.
• November 11, 1933: In South Dakota, a strong dust storm strips topsoil from depression era farms. It was one in a series of such storms to plague the Midwest during 1933 and 1934.
• December 5, 1933: The 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is passed, ending prohibition.
• June 2, 1935: The greatest hitter in the history of baseball, Babe Ruth, retires from Major League Baseball.
• May 30, 1936: Gone with the Wind is published by Margaret Mitchell.
• August 1, 1936: The Summer Olympics Games open in Berlin, Germany under the watchful eye of German leader Adolph Hitler, whose policies of Arian supremacy had already begun to take shape. The star of the games was Jesse Owens, a black American, who won four gold at the Berlin 1936 Games.
• November 3, 1936: Franklin D. Roosevelt overwhelms his Republican challenger, Alfred Landon, for a second presidential term.
• May 6, 1937: At Lakehurst, New Jersey, the German airship Hindenburg bursts into flames while mooring. The fire consumes the largest airship in the world, 804 feet long, within one minute, causing the death of thirty-six people.
• October 30, 1938: A nationwide scare develops when Orson Welles broadcasts his War of the Worlds radio drama, which included fake news bulletins stating that a Martian invasion had begun on earth.
• April 30, 1939: The New York World’s Fair opens for its two year run.
• August 2, 1939: Albert Einstein alerts Franklin D. Roosevelt to an A-bomb opportunity, which led to the creation of the Manhattan Project.

May

THE 1950s

• August 25, 1958: The library was formed into the Madison County Free District Library.  The ladies of the Civic Club began to raise funds for a new library building.

• June 5, 1976: The library building was so badly flooded after the collapse of the Teton Dam, it had to be demolished.  The furniture and most of the collection were also damaged. Within two weeks, a temporary library was set up in the Ricks College Library, and new materials were ordered. Over 35,000 books were donated from Utah. Fundraising began for a new library building.
• July 27, 1978: The new library building, located on the corner of North Center and First North, is dedicated. 

• June 5, 1976: The Teton Dam collapses, causing extensive damage to the area.  Eleven people were killed and thousands were forced to flee their homes.

September

THE 1990s

• 1991: The library adds public access terminals for patrons, making the card catalog obsolete.
• 1992: Cheryl M. Reeser retires, and Deborah Scholes becomes the new Director of the Library.

November

THE 2010s

• 2011: Judith M. Dewey retires, and Valerie Lloyd becomes the new director.