“This completely functional building combines the very latest practices in structural building, with the sweep, height and majesty of modern decoration, using the unsuspended flying stairway in a manner similar to the United Nations Assembly building to bring out all the beauty of the main or reception lobby.” Images from The Mobile Journal September 5, 1958 coverage of the Palmer and Baker Building grand opening
In 1957, a four-acre site on “the western outskirts of Mobile” was purchased from the Government Street Presbyterian Church by Palmer and Baker, an engineering firm that had been responsible for the construction of the Bankhead Tunnel some 20 years earlier. The property had once been considered for a westward move by that congregation which happily never occurred.
The engineering firm, which was founded in 1938 by Wayne Palmer, had grown substantially, and the new facility was designed to house 400 employees at an estimated cost of more than $600,000. Currently, that would equate to just under
$7 million.
The first floor was designed to hold a dozen private offices as well as labs to test chemicals and soils. There would also be a conference room and what were described as “recreational quarters” for the employees to enjoy. On the floor above would be 10 private offices, a second conference room and a large drafting room.
The basement held more labs for the testing of “cement, concrete and aggregate.” The total square footage was 38,000 square feet, and the building was designed in-house.
The unique front featured aluminum strips and “grayish-green baked enamel panels.” The two-story entrance was framed by “Verdi green Vermont marble.”
A reporter was especially impressed by the “unsuspended flying stairway” in the entrance lobby and described it to be “in a manner similar to the United Nations Assembly Building” in its beauty. The walls of this space featured a “Venezuelan glass tile mosaic of the signs of the zodiac.”
The home for Palmer and Baker was scheduled to be complete by May 1, 1958, but it did not officially open until early September of that year. At its dedication, another reporter admired “the completely functional building with the sweep, height and majesty of modern decoration.”
In less than four years, Palmer and Baker announced they would be moving out. The firm made a real estate swap with the Loyal American Life Insurance Co. for their location at 1050 Government Street.
That insurance company, founded in 1955, had later obtained the 1910 home of John Curtis Bush Jr., a cotton factor. The image of this columned mansion designed by George B. Roger was used in the new firm’s advertisements offering a sense of stability and age.
The engineering firm stated that the location closer to downtown was the reason for the move. They had no use for the mansion and demolished it in 1964, replacing it with a “new building – contemporary in design.” The cost was given as $750,000.
It was explained that “Loyal American has come to be a king-size insurance company with better than a third of a billion dollars of insurance in force” and needed more space.
In 1990, the Mobile Police Department obtained 2460 Government Boulevard as their new headquarters. They had been operating at 51 Government Street since 1950, but that location was needed for the new Exploreum. The Mobile Regional Center for the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind has now occupied 1050 Government Street for decades.
