Founded in 1747, the Redwood Library and Athenaeum occupies 50 Bellevue Avenue in Newport. This is a subscription library, museum, rare book repository, and research center founded in 1747. The Company of the Redwood Library was established in 1747 by Abraham Redwood and 45 colonists with the goal of making written knowledge more widely available to the Newport community.
The original section of the building was constructed between 1748 and 1750, designed by Peter Harrison and completed in March 1750. It was the first purposely built library in the United States and remains the oldest neo-Classical building in the country, in continuous use since its opening. The building sits within the Kay Street–Catherine Street–Old Beach Road Historic District and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960.
Think of its place in a larger story: only the Library Company of Philadelphia is older, founded in 1731 by Benjamin Franklin, and the Redwood predates the Charleston Library Society (1748), the New York Society Library (1754), and the Boston Athenæum (1807). Notice the age of stone and the persistence of purpose here, the graceful neo-Classical façade, and the streets of the historic district reaching past you.