Napa County Library

Napa County Library’s mission is to enrich people’s lives with books and information.

The Napa County Library Main Branch was the result of the efforts of a group of 19th-century young men who called themselves “The Excelsior Club.” They developed a small collection over the years to serve the Napa community, and that collection was taken over by the City of Napa in 1885. In 1901, George E Goodman donated a building for housing the library-the Goodman Library-which served the citizens of Napa for 60 years. 

In 1916, the State of California passed legislation that allowed counties to establish free public libraries, and the Napa County Board of Supervisors then established the Napa County Free Library, located just three blocks from the Goodman Library in downtown Napa. In 1963, the Napa City Library merged with the Napa County Free Library. In order to better serve the growing service area, and with a combination of funds from the library, the Friends of the Library, and federal and local grants, the current library on Coombs Street was built in 1974 and expanded in the 1990s.