They've sold out-of-print books, accepted dollar bills from the kind of patrons who line up at the library's front doors a half-hour before it opens, and secured large-scale gifts from well-known philanthropists.

Five years after beginning an endowment with $100,000 from the Friends of the Natrona County Library, members of the library's nonprofit foundation have secured their first $1 million in donations that will bring a steady stream of revenue to the library for special projects, guest speakers and educational programs not traditionally funded by Natrona County government.

"I'd really like to thank the public for their support for this first portion of the endowment," said Bill Thompson, president of the Natrona County Public Library Foundation.

"The county can make the library good, but the foundation makes it great," he said. "This will provide for extras the library will want to have that the foundation will pay for."

Thompson said the foundation expects to draw about $50,000 each year off the 5 percent interest generated by the fund.

The foundation accomplished the goal at a time when library officials reached a tentative plan to place a new library at the edge of Casper's Old Yellowstone District, on First Street along the North Platte River near Jonah Bank at the old American Pipe facility. Library officials announced that the new facility would be funded by a limited sixth-cent sales tax that must be approved by the voters in November for the project to proceed. The tax would be in effect for 1 1/2 years, Natrona County Library Board President Chris Mullen said.

"I think we'll get support for this library," Mullen said. The foundation's endowment will provide "extras the library will want to have.

"If the community decides a new library is right, the foundation is going to be a very important part in building this new facility."

Major contributions to the endowment include an $80,000 match from the Kresge Foundation, a Troy, Mich.-based foundation with assets of $3.9 billion, according to the foundation. The Casper-based McMurry Foundation also contributed money for the library group.

Much of the work was done by the Friends of the Library's semiannual book sales, which raised as much as $40,000 in spring 2007, Mullen said. That often involves members of the public giving as much as they can for their favorite books.

With the first $1 million in hand, Thompson said the foundation plans to forge ahead - to the next million.