Cincinnati's Mercantile Library Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not... in the 1930s

In a Ripley's "Believe or Not" column originally published in 1933, Cincinnati's Mercantile Library is highlighted for its astonishingly long lease — an unbelievable 10,000 years. Touted as "the longest lease in the world!," the Mercantile's collector and librarian Cedric Rose says the clipping is from one of their scrap books.

"I believe it's from the Cincinnati Times-Star, which was owned by the Tafts and pretty pro-Boss Cox for a while," he wrote in an email. "It's oddly difficult to find digital copies of. But because of the Taft connection, they also gave us great coverage especially in that year — our hundredth anniversary."

As you can see in the Ripley write-up, Alphonso A. Taft — father of President William Howard Taft — is the lawyer who negotiated the protracted lease. It expires in 11849, at which time we'll all be reading books through psychic osmosis.

The Young Men’s Mercantile Library Association was founded on April 18, 1835 — almost 20 years before the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. A group of 45 working-class merchants got together in a firehouse and decided to pool their funds so they could buy books and thus improve their knowledge, network and telegraph to the public that they were part of an esteemed organization that was reading instead of downstairs at a bar or brothel.

The Young Men’s Mercantile Library Association was founded on April 18, 1835 — almost 20 years before the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. A group of 45 working-class merchants got together in a firehouse and decided to pool their funds so they could buy books and thus improve their knowledge, network and telegraph to the public that they were part of an esteemed organization that was reading instead of downstairs at a bar or brothel.