The Captain Kimberly Hampton Memorial Library in Easley is excited to invite the community to celebrate its 20th anniversary on February 27, 2025 from 1 p.m. to 5 pm. This special event will reflect on two decades of service to the residents of Easley and Pickens County and commemorate the library’s enduring role in promoting education, connection, and growth.

The Captain Kimberly Hampton Memorial is located at 304 Biltmore Road.

History of the Captain Kimberly Hampton Memorial Library from the Pickens County Library System:

Although the official date of the library’s beginning is April 30, 1935, efforts began as early as 1929 to provide a library in Easley. At this time (1929) the Easley Woman’s Club, Easley Garden Club, Child Study Club, and the Civic League set-up, sponsored, and maintained Easley’s first public library. It was two bookcases, housed in Edwin L. Bolt’s store on Main Street in Easley. However small, this library was to become the nucleus of what is now the Pickens County Library System.

By 1935, the Pickens County Library Association was organized, and membership drives began. By the end of the first year, more than 4,000 books had been donated. The library, needing more space, was moved to Commercial Bank, just up the street from Edwin Bolt’s Store. The bank provided two rooms for the library. More books forced a third move to the former high school known as the Lanier Building. A fourth move found the library across the railroad.

A permanent home was needed. In 1947, the City of Easley bought a corner of the Lloyd Smith property on West First Avenue where a colonial building was constructed. This was through the generosity of E.S. McKissick, Sr. and other Easley benefactors who let the county use the building rent free. In this fifth move, the library found a place that it could really call home. In 1968, the building in Easley was expanded with an additional 7,000 square feet, bringing the total to 12,000 square feet.

As time went on, this building became small and overcrowded. In May of 2001, nine acres of land were purchased from the Oates Family Estate on Biltmore Drive in Easley. The old buildings were torn down and the property was cleaned up. This became the location for the Hampton Memorial Library. The Captain Kimberly Hampton Memorial Library opened to the public on Sunday, February 27, 2005.

Captain Kimberly Hampton, a native of Easley, was killed on January 2, 2004, when her OH-58 Kiowa Warrior observation helicopter was attacked near the Iraqi town of Fallujah, west of Baghdad. Captain Kimberly Hampton is the first female combat pilot killed by enemy fire in United States history.