The United States Custom House, on Bay Street just east of Bull, was one of Savannah's first major civic construction projects, costing well over $150,000 in mid nineteenth century dollars, equivalent to over $5 million today.
The eventual Custom House was constructed between 1846 and 1852. An earlier project, begun three decades earlier, had been abandoned incomplete after the initial work was destroyed in the disastrous fire of 1820.
By 1845, an appropriation of $30,000 had been secured for the erection of a new building. Charles Cluskey, one of Savannah's principal architects of the time, submitted plans for the design, but the project was instead given to newcomer John Norris. Though Norris would go on to design many of Savannah's most notable buildings, he was then relatively unknown. He had worked, however, on another custom house, in Wilmington, NC, and submitted a cheaper estimate for the work, though that in the end was not to matter.
Almost immediately work had begun on the new building, Savannah's citizens decided that a much larger building that might serve as a post office and courthouse as well as a custom house would be more efficient and useful. Construction of the work was temporarily suspended, whilst the larger appropriation needed for a bigger and grander building was sought from Congress.
John Norris set to work adapting his plans to the new requirements, doing his best to design the new edifice so it would fit upon the foundations already laid out. The appropriation finally received, it took more than a year and half to prepare the site and foundations for the new building.
The cornerstone of the US Custom House was laid on July 18 1848, with much ceremony. Construction was completed in 1852, the public invited to inspect the finished building on June 29. It was the first building in Savannah to be constructed using iron, and the first all-fireproof building too, a precaution that was to become increasingly popular in the years to come.
References
Mary Lane Morrison, John S. Norris: Architect in Savannah, 1846-1860 (New York: Beehive Press, 1980)