For most of its history, Aberdeen's public library has been a place where you were supposed to be quiet. On the afternoon of Friday, October 30, 2026, the K.O. Lee Aberdeen Public Library at 215 4th Ave SE is planning for the opposite. The library is building a walk-through haunted house through four uniquely themed rooms, each stocked with spooky surprises, creative decorations and Halloween fun, and each doubling as a trick-or-treat station where kids in costume collect candy on their way through. The event runs 3 to 5 p.m., is open to all ages, and requires no registration. You show up in a costume and walk through.
The library is billing it as a first: an all-new haunted house, not a repeat of the candy-table setup the building has hosted in past years. The Aberdeen visitor bureau's events calendar listed a 2024 "Trick or Treat at the Library" on Halloween morning, a straightforward come-get-some-treats affair. The 2026 version is a different animal, an immersive walk-through with a route, themed rooms and characters to encounter, from spooky creatures to friendlier Halloween figures. The library's own description promises that "you never know who—or what—you might encounter."
That a public library would stage a haunted house is less of a departure than it might sound, given which library this is. The K.O. Lee Aberdeen Public Library opened in 2017, replacing a 1950s-era building that had grown overcrowded, had little natural light and had suffered repeated water damage. Getting there took more than eight years of effort and a successful bond vote. The design, by CO-OP Architecture in collaboration with MSR, was deliberately conceived as something other than a warehouse for books. "The modern library isn't a place just for books. It's a learning center," the architects wrote of the project. "It's a place, much like in the past, for the community to gather." They called the result Aberdeen's living room. The building, roughly 31,000 square feet, went on to win AIA South Dakota Honor and People's Choice awards. A living room, it turns out, is a fine place to put a haunted house.
The name on the building carries its own story. Aberdeen's library was long known as the Alexander Mitchell library, a name that had been attached to the city's libraries since 1901. The first of them was a Carnegie library, built with a $15,000 grant from Andrew Carnegie on the corner of 6th Avenue and Lincoln Street, where the First United Methodist Church's expansion wing now stands. It opened in 1902 and served the city until it was condemned in 1950. Carnegie, a Scottish immigrant, named the Aberdeen building not for himself but for his friend Alexander Mitchell, a fellow Scottish immigrant and president of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railroad, who had died; Mitchell's name was chosen in part because he came from Aberdeenshire, the Scottish county that gave Aberdeen, South Dakota its name. Local legend holds that Aberdeen has the only Carnegie library in the country not named after Carnegie, though the Aberdeen Magazine account notes that despite inquiries to the Carnegie Foundation, the claim appears impossible to prove.
When the new building opened, the Mitchell name gave way. Karl O. Lee, former president of the K.O. Lee Company—an Aberdeen manufacturing firm dating to 1888 that made universal tool grinders and accessories, valve seat grinders, sanders, welders, drills and polishers—had pledged $900,000 toward construction, and the library took his name. The Lee family's philanthropy is the reason the city's library is called what it is called today.
For families, the practical appeal of the October 30 event is simple. Halloween 2026 falls on a Saturday, which puts the library's haunted house on the Friday afternoon before—an early, daylight-hours option for younger kids, and a free one. There is no admission charge and no sign-up sheet to worry about. The library asks only for a favorite costume.
More information, including any updates to the room themes or the route, is available through the library's event calendar. The library can be reached at 605-626-7097 or [email protected].