Archives West Finding Aid

Very little is known about the early life of Leonard H. Kirkpatrick (1907-1962). He was born in Arkansas in December 1907. He received his B.A. at Stanford University in 1929 and taught high school in Wyoming and Utah for the next four years. He then returned to Stanford where, in addition to getting a master's degree, he served as Assistant Librarian at the university. In 1936 he arrived at the Utah State Agricultural College (now Utah State University) where he was a librarian. During his stay he married Grace Jensen. In 1941 he took over as Head Librarian from Esther Nelson at the University of Utah's Thomas Library. For the next two decades he dealt with the changes World War II brought to the University of Utah from the sudden drop in students during the war to the explosion of the student population after the war. Always an advocate of librarianship, he was known to have a passion for his work and was a popular speaker. He sought to make Utahns more knowledgeable about the history of their state and made several shrewd purchases for the library, many of which are in today's Special Collections. As the Thomas Library grew more crowded with each passing year, Kirkpatrick began a campaign for library expansion and finally for a new building. His dream of a new library was cut short; just a few months after the Planning Committee for the new library started meeting, Kirkpatrick was killed in a traffic accident in November 1962. He is generally credited with helping turn the University of Utah Library into an effective research organization and promoting libraries throughout the state and region.