Some common items you might find in your garage are ladders, weed wackers, and wrenches. You are also likely to find an assortment of books in your local library. However, at the Washington Tool Library, the two are combined in a unique and convenient tool library.

Tool bench in the Washington Tool Library

The Washington Tool Library has provided the community with free access to tools from a-z for over 25 years.

“What the program is designed for is to give people a helping hand that maybe doesn’t have the resources to buy a lot of these tools,” explained one of the libraries volunteers.

This library is one way to cut down on costs in a struggling economy.

“If you need to have a plumber come out your talking 75-100 dollars just to have him come out and if you get the tool here you can get it for free and do it yourself and it doesn’t really cost you anything,” remarked the owner of the tool library, Tom Oberhoffen.

To check out a tool you have to become a member by filling out an application and passing a number of guidelines. You then receive your “library” card and can check out as many tools as you need.

“There’s an application you have to fill out, there’s a criteria with the government, how many people in the household and the income,” Oberhoffen explained.

Oberhoffen went on to explain his love for volunteering in the community. Now retired from working at John Deere for many years, he spends his time volunteering at the library, as well as various churches and other places in need of help.

“Helping people and people have problems, and if I can help them resolve some of that than that makes it ever better,” he remarked.

In 1985, the Archdiocese of Dubuque produced a video highlighting the Washington neighborhood that the tool library resides in. In a area as rich in history as it is, it is the perfect place for such a unique establishment. Not only that but it has helped citizens accomplish things on their own and inexpensively that they would never have been able to do before.

The video shows the story of a woman who uses the gardening tools available at the tool library every summer, and she remarks that people have been able to reside their houses on their own thanks to the tool library.

25 years later, the library is still a vital entity in Dubuque, and continues to help the community.

Morgan Finke can be reached at Morgan.finke@loras.edu