Norwood Town Hall at Montgomery and Elm.
(1882-1913)

Newspaper clipping from December 6, 1878

Although the last name on the notice was spelled "GEO. HOFER," the actual name may have been "GEO. HAFER."

On December 19, 1878, at that stockholders meeting, L. C. Hopkins was elected president of the newly formed Norwood Town Association. Also elected to office were Edwards Mills, treasurer, and Joseph B. Foraker, secretary. The elected board consisted of L. C. Hopkins, P. P. Lane, J. B. Foraker, Edward Mills and Frank Wiehe. The organization was created to follow up on the demand of local women to build a village center. However, because of lack of funds, it was four years later before they built the center.

In 1881 (perhaps on March or May 4th), George Hafer, a prominent Cincinnati businessman and the last Mayor of Avondale, donated land, at the corner of Montgomery Pike and Elm Street, to the Norwood community (at the time there was no incorporated village, but the Hedger Subdivision, of which Hafer was a partner, was often referred to as "Norwood") on the condition that a town hall be built there within two years. A frame structure was constructed facing Elm Avenue. The building was heated by stoves (probably coal) and illuminated with gas.

On November 6, 1882, the Norwood Hall Association's Board of Directors held their first meeting in the newly constructed hall. Soon, the Norwood Town Hall was used for church services, dances, plays and other community functions.

After the village was formally incorporated in 1888, the elected officials, wanting to move out of a rented office in the nearby Knights of Pythias building at Harris Avenue and Montgomery Road, decided to purchase the hall. On March 3, 1890, by Ordinance 69, the Village of Norwood voted to purchase the town hall from the Norwood Hall Association. The formal purchase was three months later, on June 20, 1890. In 1913, the city decided to replace the 31-year-old frame town hall with a masonry municipal building, now known as City Hall.

One of the topics discussed at the Monday, August 15, 1898, Norwood Village Council meeting was the setting of prices for use of the Town Hall.

"The clerk was instructed by the committee on town hall to charge the following rates for the hall: Entertainments, evening $5, afternoon $3; entire day $10. Dance from 8 to 12 o'clock, $6; after midnight $3 extra. No free nights; for these a charge of $1 will be made. Carried."
— Norwood Enterprise, Thursday, August 18, 1898.