The photo shows the north side of courthouse square looking east in downtown Huntsville. The Madison County Courthouse can be seen at the right of the photo.
The O'Shaughnessy Place, nicknamed "Castle Delight," was built in 1885 by Col. James and Lucy O'Shaughnessy. It was a two-story Queen Anne-style house with four chimneys, gas lights, water lines, and indoor plumbing. Col. O'Shaughnessy was a cotton and real estate broker, seaport and railroad developer, and co-owner of the Huntsville Hotel, Huntsville Opera House, Hotel Monte Sano, and the Monte Sano Railway and Turnpike. The house burned in March 1890 and was demolished in the 1920s.
The photo shows the owner, Henry Fuller, with his family outside the cave entrance. Fuller purchased the cave in 1888 and developed it into an underground dance hall and bar. The cave is near current-day Pulaski Pike in Huntsville.
The hotel opened on June 1, 1887 as a luxury health resort. It was built by the North Alabama Improvement Company with funding from Michael and James O'Shaughnessy. The hotel closed in 1900 and was demolished in 1944.
This photo shows a scene at Lily Lake on the grounds of Col. James O'Shaughnessy's home on Monte Sano. According to the Historic Huntsville Quarterly, the structure in the foreground of the photo is a "four-tiered vertical framework covered with ivy, and reaching an impressive height of twelve feet or so."
