The museum, which will be called Heritage Hall, will be open to the public first, following a ribbon cutting ceremony on June 5 during the Frontenac Mining Days. The ribbon cutting ceremony will unveil a bronze bust of a coal miner at the new Miner’s Park. McKay Street Coffeehouse, which is in the same building as the library and museum, will also open on June 5. The library will follow sometime after, once books have been shelved and systems have been put in place.
According to library and museum director Seth Nutt, Frontenac has never had a public library of its own due to the town’s proximity to Pittsburg.
“I believe it was on the ballot at some point in time in the 1980s and it did not pass,” he said. “However, our town is much different than it was in the 1980s. I know the community's really excited about bringing the library into Frontenac and all the ways they can utilize its services.”
Similarly, the town’s history is preserved at the Crawford County Historical Museum in Pittsburg and the Miners Hall Museum in Franklin, but there has never been a museum dedicated solely to Frontenac.
The project became possible in 2019, when Richard and Jeanette Tavella left $4.5 million to Frontenac specifically for a public library. According to Nutt, they’ve also received additional donations.
“We've been able to invest the money and be really responsible with it, so it's taken care of construction and the furnishings,” he said. “We've also had some other donors step forward to take care of little things. Of course, I've been building the book collection since day one of me being on the job.”
Nutt was hired in October 2022, and construction began just under two years later. An advisory board with representation from different sectors of the town was formed to provide input for design options, furnishings and other details.
To build the book collection from scratch, Nutt has kept an eye on new releases and popular lists, and has also received guidance from other library directors in the area. He also accepts donations, but asks that the books be in new condition and published in the last five years.
“Being an elementary educator, that children's collection was really easy for me to put together,” he said. “But I want to make sure that our adult collection is kind of on the newer side.”
The museum collection started in 2016 with the return of the Frontenac Summer Homecoming, which is now the Mining Days celebration. Nutt and other committee members started gathering old photos to put on display, and have since received thousands more, along with other historical objects.
Nutt said that while the county museum and Miners Hall do a good job of showcasing the local mining history, visitors will be able to dive deeper into Frontenac’s past at Heritage Hall.
“It's unique in the fact that we have recreated a lot of the original buildings in town and created their front facades, with their windows and their doors being lit display cases,” he said. “So it's kind of like you're walking back in time, taking in the old city.”
With the coffeehouse and community room located in the library, Nutt is hoping it can be a place for people to gather, whether it be in a casual sense or through group events.
“We've kind of set it up to be the living room of the community so people can, even if they're not reading, they can just come in and hang out in front of the fireplace, check emails, visit with friends, whatever they need to do,” Nutt said.
The sense of community is part of what pulled Andra and Brad Stefanoni to opening McKay Street Coffeehouse. They’ve owned and operated Root Coffeehouse in Pittsburg since December 2021, and were approached by Nutt in 2023 to open a location at the library.
Brad grew up in Frontenac while Andra grew up in Pittsburg. For her, public libraries have always been important spaces.
“My first job wound up being at the Pittsburg Public Library as a teenager, and we took our boys to the library for story time and programs,” she said. “It's always been a place that we felt very connected to. So when we learned that we had an opportunity to be part of a library and a community space and museum that’s in Brad's hometown, it just seemed like a no brainer.”
The family ties to Frontenac run deep, starting in the early 1900s when Brad’s great-grandfather immigrated from northern Italy and worked as a coal miner. The family lived on nearby Cayuga Street, where Brad’s grandfather, father and uncle eventually owned an auto body shop and gas station. The first location of their business was just across the street from where McKay Street Coffeehouse now sits.
As a third-generation entrepreneur, Brad is looking forward to being a part of the community as a business owner. It’s something he and Andra will carry over from Root Coffeehouse, which they recently sold to new owners.
“I just really like the environment of the shop,” he said. “That goes for Root also. The people that we get to interact with, whether they're locals or people just passing through, students and everything in between. Just having an opportunity to have that third space to be able to provide that kind of interaction.”
The menu will be similar to Root with some simplifications. For example, McKay Street will have pastries, but won’t serve crepes. Some of the specialty drinks will have names that reflect Frontenac and its heritage, as will the bags of beans from their local partners, Signet Coffee Roasters in Pittsburg and Bearded Lady Coffee Roasters in Joplin. Customers can buy these specialty roasts in the store.
“They do an amazing job,” Brad said of their partners. “We want to continue that because it's a very high quality. People will expect it, and we want to provide that.”
The Stefanonis have forged a new local partnership for McKay Street. They will have T-shirts for sale which were screen printed by Raider Ink, a class of students at Frontenac High School. They are also looking forward to partnering with the library to host different events, possibly like the teen nights they hosted at Root with the Pittsburg Public Library.
According to Andra, these types of gathering spaces in smaller communities often have a positive effect.
“People can have pride,” Andra said. “The history is remembered, but you're also looking to the future. Those are the communities that are the strongest, and as these spaces pop up in these little communities, it often spurs additional growth. It makes people want to stay. It affords a quality of life that perhaps they didn't have before.”
Updates from the Frontenac Public Library can be found on its website and Facebook page. McKay Street Coffeehouse also has a website and Facebook page, and more information about the ribbon cutting ceremony and other events during the Frontenac Mining Days can be found on Facebook.
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