The Cypress Creek Branch Library opened in 1976 after a successful campaign by Spring residents. The branch was an immensely popular location in the community with an incredibly dedicated Friends group to support library services.

In early 1995, efforts began in earnest to promote and fundraise for a new building. The building was initially designed to hold approximately 15,000 books, but the collection had grown to over 67,000! The library literally could not hold any more books.

Around the same time, the Friends of the Cypress Creek Library received permission from former First Lady Barbara Bush to name the future library after her. 

The Barbara Bush Branch Library officially opened in December 2002. Bush attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the building in 2003 and held storytime at the branch several times over the following decade. 

The branch in Clear Lake has had three names over the years. The library opened in November 1964 as the independent Clear Lake Public Library. In December, it was renamed in honor of astronaut Captain Theodore Freeman, who had recently died in an airplane crash. The Freeman Memorial Library joined HCPL that same month.

In 1999, the City of Houston and Harris County agreed to jointly fund a new 40,000-square-foot building. When it opened in June 2004, it was named the Clear Lake City-County Freeman Branch Library.  

The Crosby Library first opened in 1922 within a high school before moving into its own dedicated building in 1930. Over the following decades, the library occupied several different locations until settling into its current building, which opened in 1987.

On October 16, 2017, the Crosby Branch Library celebrated the 30th anniversary of its current building with a renaming ceremony. The branch was renamed the Crosby Edith Fae Cook Cole Branch Library.

Cole, who had assembled the historical display at the branch in 1989, was from a notable Crosby family - Hare Cook Road bears her family's name.  The County renamed the branch to honor Cole's work as a Crosby historian.

Before 1935, the town of Galena Park was known as Clinton.  The Clinton School was among the first schools to have a book station with the Harris County Public Library.  The school was first referenced in the 1922 HCPL annual report.

A request for a post office in Clinton was denied around 1935 because there was another Clinton, Texas, already registered.  Community leaders changed the town's name to Galena Park in honor of the Galena Signal Oil Company of Texas, the first oil company built there.  The library reports continued to use the name Clinton (for the school) for the next few years. But by the end of the 1930s, the branch was consistently called Galena Park.

When the Highlands Library first opened in 1927, it was referred to as Highlands-Elena in HCPL reports.  The community was known as Highlands and Elena during this time, but by the early 1930s, the library's name had settled into just Highlands.   

When the library outgrew its 1937 building in the 1960s, the community began to petition for a larger location.  In 1963, Highlands resident Anna Stratford donated a lot to serve as the site for a new library building and a public park.  When the new building opened in March 1966, it was dedicated in honor of Stratford.  For the next decade, both Highlands Library and Stratford Library appeared in local publications as the community adjusted to the new name. However, by the early 1980s, the library was known best as the Stratford branch.

Fifty years later, the community approached the county about the name of their branch, with a wish for the library's name to reflect the community it serves. In 2023, the branch was renamed the Highlands Stratford Branch Library - honoring both its deep community roots and the legacy of Anna Stratford.

The HCPL Bookmobile route began visiting Jacinto City in the 1940s.  In 1957, Jacinto City and Harris County began talks to open a branch library.  Jacinto City Mayor A. J. "Bert" Holder created a library board, and his city council secured a building for the new branch. The Jacinto City Branch Library opened in 1958.

Former Mayor Holder passed away in 1991.

When a new Jacinto City building opened in 1994, it was dedicated to Mayor Holder to honor his contribution to the community. On the exterior of the building, just above the front door, is a sign for the "A.J. 'Bert' Holder Library."   

The branch opened in May 1983 as the Bear Creek Branch Library.  

The building was rededicated in October 1999 as the Katherine Tyra Branch at Bear Creek. A passionate reader, Katherine Tyra served as the Harris County District Clerk from 1991-1995.  

The La Porte Branch Library opened in 1921 and operated out of various locations until a dedicated library building was constructed in 1929.

From 1960 to 1982, Edith Wilson served as the Branch Librarian.  Starting in 1962, Wilson campaigned for a new building for the branch, which was still operating out of the 1929 building, which it had massively outgrown.  The new building opened in 1967 and was more than eight times the size of the 1929 building.

Edith Wilson passed away on June 20, 1982.  The La Porte branch was renamed the Edith Wilson Memorial Library in August of that year, in her honor. 

When the La Porte Branch Library moved into its current building in 2001, it reverted to its original community name.

Service to the Tomball community began in 1922 with a library station located in a post office on Main Street. After the station closed, a bookmobile provided sporadic service to the area, with regular service established after World War II. 

A Friends of the Library group was formed in the early 1960s to petition Harris County for a library.  The first official branch of the Tomball Library opened in July 1962. 

The branch quickly outgrew its original space, and also a second space on Elm Street.  A new building was eventually opened in February 1972.  The branch was expanded again in 2005, in partnership with the North Harris County Montgomery Community College. 

The new joint county-college library would serve both students at the college and the greater Tomball community.  The library was officially renamed in 2007 to Lone Star College Tomball Community Library. 

Before the 1990s, the greater North Channel community was served by two separate library branches: Channelview and Woodforest. The Channelview Branch opened in June 1954 in shopping center with just 3,000 books. It later moved into a new county-owned building in 1961. The branch faced serious challenges, including repeated vandalism in the 1970s. A fire in 1979 destroyed nearly its entire 10,000-book collection, and even after reopening, safety remained a concern.

The Woodforest Branch opened in May 1969. Its 5,000-square-foot facility housed 25,000 books but was plagued by frequent flooding: the building flooded five times in the first six years. The flooding continued into the 1980s, with a 1981 incident alone destroying more than 1,000 books. These recurring problems made it difficult for the branch to serve the community reliably.

By the late 1980s, it was evident that both the Channelview and Woodforest branches were undersized and faced ongoing structural and safety concerns. The County recognized that maintaining them separately was no longer viable for meeting the needs of the growing population.

As a solution, Harris County consolidated services into a single, larger, modern facility. Both Channelview and Woodforest branches were closed, and the North Channel Branch Library was built on a new site to serve the entire region. This new library brought expanded resources and a more secure, sustainable future for public library service in the North Channel community.

The Humble community has been part of the Harris County Public Library system since its founding in 1921.  The first Humble library station opened in November 1921 at the Humble School.  For over thirty years, the library was in Humble City Hall.  The branch was one of the busiest in the HCPL system and outgrew the space in City Hall by the 1940s.  The community created a library board to campaign for a new building, but their efforts stalled until the early 1960s. 

In 1964,  Mrs. Tom Shelton donated a lot and house to the City of Humble for use as a library.  The Humble City Council accepted the offer and authorized a budget of $500 to remodel the house.  The new building was ready in February 1965. The branch was renamed the Shelton Memorial Library in honor of Tom Shelton and would serve Humble for the next four years.  

In 1968, a bond election allotted $60,000 for a new library and City Hall buildings. The family of Octavia Fields donated furnishings and shelving for the library in memory of their mother.  The branch was renamed Octavia Fields Memorial Library and had its grand opening on October 9, 1969.  

The branch moved into its current building in June 2001.  

When the branch first opened at the St. Francis Episcopal Church in 1955, it was referred to as the Spring Branch-Memorial Drive Branch Library in local newspaper articles and occasionally the Memorial Drive-Spring Branch County Library Branch!  The church's address at 345 Piney Point was close to Memorial Drive.  

However, in the annual reports, the branch was usually called Spring Branch or Spring Branch Memorial.  The branch moved into a county-owned cottage on Corbindale Road in 1959, about 1.5 miles north of the church. By the mid-1960s, the Drive part of the name had been dropped everywhere. 

The Memorial part of the name may also reference the Memorial area where the branch is located.  The current building, which opened in 1975, is located in Hedwig Village, one of the six Memorial Villages that operate as independent cities to the east of Houston.