Lawyers have always sought ways of sharing office expenses, particularly the cost of law books. In the late nineteenth century, the Macon Bar Association maintained a mutual law library at 567 Mulberry Street, the Washington Block. Washington Dessau was listed for several years as President of the Macon Bar Library Association, with R. K. Hines as vice president and F. T. Martin as treasure. The library seems to have faded out with Dessau's death in 1905.
Under the leadership of Judge A. L. Miller, the Macon Bar re-established the law library at a meeting in December of 1910. It was then located in the Georgia Life Building.
In 1919, a bar committee was appointed to look into problems with the library, then located on the sixth floor of the Georgia Casualty Building (Fulton Federal). The committee reported in January of 1920 that the supply of law books was badly depleted. It was further reported that lawyers checked books out of the library, but did not return them, and that the lady in charge of the library refused to be responsible for it any longer. She said she often found the door standing open when she arrived in the morning.
This library disappeared from the Macon City Directory in 1924. That marked the end of the Bar Association's attempts to maintain a private law library.
In 1931, the General Assembly passed a special act directing the State Librarian to provide the Georgia Reports, Georgia Appeals, and Georgia Laws to Bibb County annually for use in a "...law library to be provided at the courthouse for the use of officers of the court and the public." There was such a law library at the rear of the City Court (State Court), on the second floor of the courthouse.
In 1971, the General Assembly enacted a law establishing a law library in every county in the State. In Bibb County, it is located on the sixth floor of the Grand Building, and financed by a court cost charge on all civil cases. The library is managed by the Chief Judge of the Superior Court, The Probate Judge, District Attorney, Superior Court Clerk, Judge of the State Court, Solicitor General of the State Court, and two lawyers appointed by the other trustees.
_ Frank M. McKenney