June2014_DAYBORO DISTRICT HISTORICAL SOCIETY INC
Est. 2004
DAYBORO HERITAGE TRAIL & DAYBORO HISTORICAL TOWN WALK:
I would like to point out to readers that there are two very different “town walks” in Dayboro. Each month, for over a year now, I have been giving details of what is depicted on the markers on the Dayboro Heritage Trail which was launched on 6th December 2012.
There are 19 of these very distinctive orange with metal overlay markers on the trail, each one featuring a photograph and text. The other walk is Dayboro “The Town of Yesteryear” Historical Town Walk. This walk was launched on 11th May 2009 by Dayboro District Historical Society and it featured 18 of the older buildings in the town which were still being used at the time. Sadly, building No. 12 on that walk, which was the store and tearooms built abt. 1922, was destroyed by fire in 2011. The other 17 buildings are still in existence. That is the major difference in the two walks. On the Dayboro Heritage Trail there is no location more recent than 1922, and some of the buildings featured have long gone. On the Historical Town Walk all of the buildings are easily recognisable. It was only this week (at the time of writing) that the little folk from the Dayboro Primary School, and some of their parents and teachers, were walking around town with this brochure in their hands and the children were able to recognise the buildings. Copies of both these brochures are available at the Dayboro Information Centre, 27 Williams Street, Dayboro.
DAYBORO HERITAGE TRAIL:
Marker 14 Original Crown Hotel & Store:
This is one of those sites where the building no longer exists. It is almost directly opposite Marker 13 featured last month – Robert Vellnagel’s House and Store – the original house now being occupied by the Dayboro Medical Centre.
In 1887 James Kinkead Berry constructed a brick building to serve as a dwelling and store. This was the township’s first general store and it became an unofficial post office. In 1888 James Berry was appointed Post Master. Earlier that year he had also applied for a hotel licence.
After several unsuccessful applications, conditions were met and a provisional licence was granted for the Crown Hotel in 1892.
The original brick building became the hotel and a timber structure was attached as a general store.
The store was built using bricks from the old sugar mill. Lieutenant James Berry embarked for South Africa with the 4th Contingent Imperial Bushmen, Queensland, on 18 May 1900. In September 1900 his wife leased the hotel to James Cowan. Mary Ann Berry (nee Lacey) died on 27 October 1900 giving birth to the couple’s ninth child. The child, Constance Kinkead Berry, survived.
I would really like to lay to rest once and for all the myth that the original Crown Hotel burnt down. That did not happen. In June 1913 ownership of the hotel block was transferred to Francis James Thomson Hepburn, the previous publicans having been lessees. Hepburn had a two-storied timber hotel erected adjacent to the original hotel. The timber store building can be seen in a c. 1918 photograph showing State Government Insurance Office Agency signage. At some stage this timber building was removed, or possibly relocated, but the original building can still be seen in the background of a photograph taken in 1923.
On 4th February 1899 Hugh Strain obtained a Wine Seller’s licence and operated his wine saloon or “store” in the original Orange Hall built in the 1870s near the corner of Laceys Creek and Mt. Pleasant Roads. The “Brisbane Courier” of 12th July 1927 records: “A house fire occurred at the corner of Lacey’s Creek and Mount Pleasant roads. It was probably the oldest building in the district.”
The “hotel” building that burnt down in 1927 was the original Orange Hall.
An interview with Charles Thomas Williams published in the “Courier Mail” on 28th January 1928 records “…and the first hotel – its ruins are still standing – was built of bricks from the stack of the old sugar mill.”
DATE-CLAIMER: On Sunday 21st September Dayboro District Historical Society will be holding its biennial 75s and Over Day at the Dayboro Memorial Showgrounds.
Carmel Bond, President
Ph: 3425 1717 (h)
or 3425 2032 (Dayboro Cottage)
