Located at 822 Second St., Waxwing Books has been a staple in downtown Chillicothe in the old Carnegie library for about 13 years. The building recently went back on the market, but owners Richard and Wendy Popp don’t expect to move very soon. (Photo by Elise Zwicky)

A popular used bookstore in the old Carnegie library in Chillicothe might never have opened if its owners hadn’t chanced upon a TV commercial advertising the building for sale while visiting from out of state 13 years ago.

“The building had been up for sale for about a year, and no one in town had any plans for it. So we made an offer in 2005,” said Richard Popp, who with his wife, Wendy, owns Waxwing Books in the old library building at 822 Second St. in downtown Chillicothe.

While the Popps hadn’t planned on moving to Illinois, they had been thinking about opening a bookstore somewhere. “We lived in South Dakota at the time, and I was selling books online, which we still do,” Popp said.

Although they still love the Chillicothe location, they put the building back on the market last year so Richard can join Wendy in Lanark, Ill., where she is the pastor at the Trinity Lutheran Church.

Wendy previously served Lutheran parishes in Lacon, Varna and Wyoming and was a chaplain at Lutheran Hillside Village.

Popp plans to keep the bookstore open until the building sells, which he knows may take awhile.

Waxwing Books in Chillicothe features many more books than when the building held the old Carnegie library. The bookshelves on the walls are the original oak shelves that were built in 1916. (Photo by Elise Zwicky)

“It was for sale for about a year before we discovered it and no one knew we were coming, so I think it will be like that,” he said. “It will take the right person who really has an idea of something they want to do with it.”

The 102-year-old brick building is sturdy but would likely need to be remodeled to be anything other than a bookstore, Popp said. When the Popps bought the building, they didn’t have to do much to it other than make it handicapped accessible.

“We basically left the inside more or less the way it was when the library was here. The bookshelves on the walls are the original oak shelves that were built in 1916,” he said.

Ironically, Waxwing Books has many more titles than the library ever had because the library used some of the space previously reserved for tables and newspapers. Waxwing utilizes nearly every nook and cranny to hold books.

The Popps have an apartment in the basement, which Richard said makes commuting very convenient, especially on cold snowy days.

According to Gary Fyke with the Chillicothe Historical Society, the Carnegie library was built with a $10,000 grant from the Carnegie Corp. on land the Library Board had purchased from J.P. Mathews. It was one of 106 public libraries built in Illinois between 1903 and 1914 through Carnegie grants.

Previously, the town had a small library in a drugstore where books could be borrowed but that was not a genuine “lending library” as the Carnegie library was, Fyke said. Town citizens had to approve a tax to raise a certain amount of money before it would be considered as a recipient community for a Carnegie library. “Elections on libraries were the first issue where women were allowed to vote in Illinois. They could not vote in other elections at the time,” Fyke said.

“I think Waxwing is an asset to the community in that it holds and offers thousands of books and publications and other items that are no longer mainstream,” Fyke added.

As a member of the committee that helped fundraise for the new library across town, Fyke said the Carnegie library lacked sufficient space to modernize and adapt to the computerization of library science. The building’s stairs were also a concern.

Waxwing sells a wide variety of used books, including fiction, mysteries, cookbooks and children’s titles.

“My background is in history so we have a lot of history books, and because of my wife’s connections we end up with a lot of theology books,” Popp said. “ I have a whole shelf full of books on the Civil War and World War II and the French and Indian War. I didn’t know there were that many books written on the French and Indian War, but there are people who write them and there are people who want them.”

Waxwing Books in Chillicothe features many more books than when the building held the old Carnegie library. The bookshelves on the walls are the original oak shelves that were built in 1916. (Photo by Elise Zwicky)

Popp sells more books online through Amazon than he does in the store, but Waxwing does get a fair amount of walk-in traffic. “I have regular customers from Chillicothe and also people coming from Peoria and the surrounding area,” said Popp, who holds a master’s degree in history and has published two books on postcard history in South Dakota.

He’s not currently buying any books from customers because he’s starting the process of downsizing for an eventual move. He plans to continue selling books online after he closes the bookstore.

“I sell all kinds of books online but especially things that are hard to find,” Popp said. “A few years ago I got a whole collection of Army manuals from someone who had collected them from the Vietnam War era and those have sold well.”

Being surrounded by books and having conversations about books are what Popp enjoys the most about owning the store, which he named after a favorite bird. “Where I grew up in Montana, (waxwings) were the last colorful birds to hang around in the fall. They ate fermented berries off the mountain ash trees, got drunk and smashed into windows. It was highly entertaining,” he said.

Waxwing Books is open from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday. For more information, visit the store’s Facebook page or call (309) 274-5132.

—Building on market but Waxwing Books staying put for now–