Library services in Spearfish date back to the early 1900s, when books from Spearfish Normal School were loaned out from a store front on Main Street. For a while during the depression the first true library opened up and was funded by the WPA, as a means of creating jobs. But the WPA soon left, and with it, the so-called library.
When Grace Balloch, an English teacher at Black Hills Teachers' College, passed away in the fall of 1944, she left her entire collection of books, about 1500, to the City of Spearfish. Those books were the beginning of the Spearfish Public Library.
Grace Balloch is a full member of the South Dakota Library Network, with access to roughly four million materials through inter-library loan. SDLN also offers full text research through Infotrac and ProQuest, as well as a computerized Card Catalog system. The library has six multimedia/internet terminals, and dedicated internet access.