The importance of the project, in its time, was expressed starkly in the 1988 National Register nomination: The library building is significant because it has served Hugo since its construction as a center of community activity.

Indeed, immediately after it was built it was the regional headquarters of the WPA itself; later it was the site of agricultural fairs and the like.

In the early days of the depression it also provided employment opportunities for destitute laborers with no hope of work in the private sector.

In the Hugo area construction of it helped pr-event starvation.

This article about a property in Oklahoma on the National Register of Historic Places is a stub.