Wytheville Community College: Kegley Library

The Kegley Library is a special collection of local history and family history housed in the Wytheville Community College Library. It is the result of a personal library that was bequeathed to WCC by noted historian Frederick Bittle Kegley in 1968.

The original collection contained books, pamphlets, newspaper clippings, census records, manuscripts, WPA documents, journals, photographs, and maps. Since its inception the collection has grown considerably. Once housed in a small room off the main library in Bland Hall, the Kegley Library now resides in a reading room and vault room in the Smyth Hall main library. The collection now includes over 5,000 books, 150 manuscript collections, 8,000 photographs, 500 maps, 9 cabinets of vertical files, 19,000 tombstone inscriptions, and 140 subject albums. A comprehensive collection of local newspapers, court and census records on microfilm, and oral history collection also are housed here.

Local historians Mary B. Kegley and Dr. W. Randolph Chitwood have donated their impressive research collections and many other researchers have generously placed research material. Books and other material focusing on the history and genealogy of Southwest Virginia are continually added.