The library was built in 1969 by Ann Hopewell Smoot in memory of her husband, Lewis Egerton Smoot, and opened in 1970. In 1973, the King George County Board of Supervisors adopted an ordinance to create the board of trustees. Mrs. Smoot donated the land, building, its contents and $700,000 to establish an endowment fund to maintain the free public library. The board of trustees appoints a library director and manages the library as a political subdivision of the county, operating independently f