The history of the Wood County District Public Library can be traced back to a group of men who organized the Bowling Green Library Association on January 21, 1875. To belong to this subscription library, shares needed to be purchased at $5.00 each. Each shareholder was permitted one vote in the Association and permission to borrow one book at a time from the library. This organization continued from 1876 - 1886 with a total of 76 library subscribers.

Records for the following years are unclear, but in 1911, the library movement was revived by a group of women who were members of the Shakespeare Roundtable in Bowling Green. A committee was organized to raise money to fund the public library. In March, 1914, the new library opened in two small rooms at the rear of the Exchange Bank Building with a total of 300 volumes of books. This library was also a subscription library with a membership fee of $1.00.

The library moved several times, once to an upstairs location at the corner of West Court and North Main streets. It was staffed by volunteers from the Shakespeare Club and other public volunteers. In 1928, the library moved into the new high school building (currently the Junior High) on West Wooster Street. It served as both a school and public library. New services were added when the Bradner Branch Library opened in 1949, and the first bookmobile service became available to the county in 1951.

In 1956, the library moved again. This time the move was to the remodeled Church Street School (currently the City Administration Building). Shut-in service was established in 1961. Space was limited in the Church Street building, and the floors had not been designed to hold the weight of full bookshelves. In August 1974, the Wood County District Public Library opened its doors at 251 North Main Street, a brand new building designed to meet the functions of a public library.