The Background
The June 13, 1899, edition of The Atlanta Journal published remarks from G.L. Norrman about Huntsville, Alabama, where he had just returned “from a business visit”.
Norrman may have visited that area in connection with plans for the renovation of the Lauderdale Court House in nearby Florence, Alabama, which was awarded days later to Golucke & Stewart of Atlanta.1
It’s unclear if Norrman ever completed any work in Huntsville or North Alabama, although he designed multiple projects in Anniston and Gadsden, Alabama, in the late 1880s, and briefly considered moving his practice to Birmingham, Alabama in late 1899, when he was designing the Bienville Hotel (pictured above) in Mobile, Alabama.
The spring he refers to here is the Big Spring in downtown Huntsville.
Norrman’s remarks:
“I like Huntsville very much. It’s a pretty, thrifty little town—the people there dress well and seem to be prosperous and the streets are full of elegantly dressed, handsome ladies.
“A great stream of water, twenty-odd feet broad, gushes from rock to the tune of over a million gallons a minute. It is a most refreshing sight— this spring. This hot weather a man can almost keep cool who carries around a picture of the Huntsville spring in his mind.”2