Colorado College's first freestanding library was Coburn Library, built in 1894 by Andrews, Jacques & Rantoul of Boston, located at the corner of Cascade and Cache la Poudre, where Armstrong is now. Like Hagerman Hall, Coburn was built of peachblow sandstone quarried near Aspen and transported by the Colorado Midland Railroad. (Palmer Hall would later be built of the same material.)

Coburn cost about $45,000 to build. The major donor was the Hon. N. P. Coburn of Newton Massachusetts, a childhood friend of CC President Slocum. In 1940, to make room for the growing collection, a four-story addition with room for 60,000 volumes was built for $20,000.

The building, judged inadequate even after the addition, was razed in 1963. The statue of Winged Victory of Samothrace, seen here in an interior view ca. 1895, disappeared around that time. We hold out hope that it will come back home to roost one day.