The Background
In June 1899, 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 the area in connection with plans to renovate the Lauderdale County Courthouse in nearby Florence, Alabama, a project that was ultimately awarded to Golucke & Stewart of Atlanta.1
It’s unclear if Norrman ever completed any work in the Huntsville area, although he designed multiple projects in Anniston and Gadsden, Alabama, in the late 1880s and early 1890s.
In late 1899, Norrman briefly considered moving his practice to Birmingham, Alabama, when he was designing the Bienville Hotel (pictured above) in the port city of Mobile, 250 miles south of Birmingham. Instead, he remained in Atlanta, and there’s no evidence that Norrman ever completed any work in Birmingham.
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