The Carlton County Board of Commissioners voted Nov. 13 to sell the Shaw Library building to its longtime tenant, the Carlton County Historical Society, for exactly $1.

And that is not much more than what the county paid for the building when it took possession of the historic property from the city of Cloquet.

It was a decision months in the making, a debate that started when county officials decided they didn’t want to make the large investments required to renovate the former library and solicited proposals for the building — home to CCHS since 1987 — and actually got one from a g...