As part of the Summer Reading Program focus on pets, come meet Kasey the Fire Dog. The Kasey Program© teaches children by using Kasey, a black labrador retriever, to teach life and fire safety skills, ie stop, drop & roll, checking the door to see if it's hot, knowing two ways out, etc.
The Spades Park Branch was built with funds from a $120,000 grant by the Andrew Carnegie Foundation and opened in 1912, six months after the opening of the city’s other remaining Carnegie Library, the East Washington Branch. The 7,500-square-foot branch underwent a $610,000 renovation in 1987 and celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2012.