More from KUOW Government Seattle's First Library Was Also Its First Counterculture KUOW | By David Hyde Published November 5, 2015 at 1:48 PM AKST Twitter LinkedIn Email Listen • 8:14 Flickr Photo/Seattle Municipal Archives (CC BY 2.0)/http://bit.ly/1WDlL39 Seattle Public Library central branch, 1914 (not the first iteration - that was in 1898 on the fifth floor of the Occidental Building in Pioneer Square). David Hyde travels back in time through the magic of radio with writer Knute Berger to the site of Seattle's first library.