At the first library organizational meeting in 1906, Mrs. Payson Pierce offered her home on Montrose Street for regular meetings and a place to keep the books. In 1910 the books were moved to the Isaiah Benson home at 607 Lake Avenue. In 1911 the name of the organization was the Clermont Library Club and the books were moved to the small Baptist Church.

At the May 23, 1914 meeting of the Club, it was decided that a permanent home for the books would be built. Mrs. Alice Cooper offered to lease a lot on DeSoto Street to the Club as long as it was used for a library. In the summer of 1914, $600 secured its construction.

The original Cooper Memorial Library was built in 1914 near the current City Hall in downtown Clermont. It was moved to the Historic Village site in 2009, restored and made into a museum of local/world history. It is referred to as “little Cooper.”