The Billy Graham Library is a public museum and library documenting the life and ministry of Christian evangelist Billy Graham. The 40,000-square-foot (3,700 m2) complex opened to the public on June 5, 2007. The library is located on the grounds of the international headquarters of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association in Charlotte, North Carolina, a few miles from where Graham was reared. The library is styled after a dairy barn, with a mechanical "talking" cow, to reflect Graham's farm-based childhood.
The main galleries within the library showcase numerous presentations, pictures, music, artifacts, and voices from throughout Graham's ministry. One gallery is entirely devoted to Ruth Bell Graham, the late wife of the evangelist. There is a dairy bar café and bookstore called "Ruth's Attic." All visitors enter the Library through doors at the base of a 40-foot (12 m) glass cross. Also located on the Library grounds is the Prayer Garden, where Ruth Graham was buried on June 17, 2007. She was against being buried there, and preferred her home in the mountains to be her final resting place until just before she died. In March 2009 the wife of long time music director for Rev. Billy Graham Cliff Barrows (Wilma "Billie" Barrows ) was also buried on the Library grounds.
Famous quotes containing the word library:
“Readers transform a library from a mausoleum into many theaters.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)