Century-Old Probate Case Resurrected to Pave Way for Library Expansion

The Eager Free Public Library is planning to undertake a building expansion project. The City of Evansville has purchased the property adjacent to the library with a plan that the adjacent property be used for the expansion.

As sometimes occurs … a hurdle is discovered.

A real property title search revealed that a no-build easement area existed between the library property and the property intended for the expansion. The no-build easement is the width of a driveway and it stretches all the way to heaven and clear down to hell. In a nutshell, the easement blocks the library’s ability to expand its building onto the adjacent post office property.

One way to overcome a no-build easement is to have the owners of the benefiting and so-called “slave” property vacate the easement via a written agreement. The library property owner is one of the necessary parties to sign any agreement needed to do that.  That sounds easy enough. However, the owner of the library property was neither the city nor the library itself. It was actually owned by a decedent’s probate estate that has been closed for over a century:  the Almeron Eager estate.

Almeron Eager was a great Evansville man.  He was a local legend. He was very involved in Evansville’s business and civic activities in the late 1800s.  When he passed away in 1902, his will left a substantial amount of money to build a library building (The Eager Free Public Library) and to purchase the necessary real estate.

Under the terms of his will, Almeron’s estate was to hold the land and proceeds in trust for the construction of the building and transfer the land and building to the city only after the library was completed, it was named Eager Free, and a statue of his likeness was erected in the building. The beautiful Eager Free Public Library, complete with the statue, was completed in 1908. The executors of Almeron’s estate likely intended to transfer the land and building to the city when the probate case was closed in 1912 but neglected to do so.

Seeing the necessity to complete Almeron’s wishes, the Eager family stepped up to the plate. On May 13, 2014, Eloise Eager, Almeron’s great-great-granddaughter, petitioned the Rock County Probate Court to re-open Almeron’s 111-year-old probate estate.   The Court granted the petition and appointed Eloise Eager as the Special Administrator for the Almeron Eager estate. After a wait of over one hundred years, the estate finally had an individual with the authority to execute a deed transferring the library building and its real estate from Almeron to the City of Evansville. Eloise executed and filed the deed. Now Almeron’s probate has been completed and his wishes have been fulfilled.

The City of Evansville now owns the library parcel and the adjacent parcel.  It is in the position to work to remove the no-build easement and commence with the library expansion: an expansion that will further Almeron’s vision of a free and accessible library for Evansville.

Our law firm was proud to play a role in getting this accomplished.