Although library services were offered in Lynn as early 1815, it was not until a bequest in 1896 that the city began planning a permanent home for the growing collection.

After some controversy, library trustees chose a Renaissance Revival design by local architect George A. Moore, who happened to be related to one of the library trustees.

Controversy also attended the size and scale of the building, along with the removal of trees at its site on the town common.

[2] In 1900 the library commissioned the first mural of F. Luis Mora, a prominent Hispanic American artist.

This article about a National Register of Historic Places listing in Essex County, Massachusetts, is a stub.