The Maquoketa Literary Society was organized as early as 1851, and the Boardman Library Institute was founded in 1885.

The community applied to the Carnegie Corporation of New York for a grant to build a free public library, and on March 14, 1902, they were awarded $12,500.

[2] The total cost of acquiring the property and constructing the building was $15,000, which they raised by public contributions and entertainments.

It features a symmetrical facade, with columns in the Ionic order that frame the portico.

This article about a property in Jackson County, Iowa on the National Register of Historic Places is a stub.