Victorian-Edwardian pubs in West Australia

600 ks east of Perth, the City of Kalgoorlie was a unique expression of gold fever. Unlike most goldmining towns, which last for perhaps a dec­ade, Kalgoorlie includes the famous Golden Mile and has an economy driven by gold since 1893. The central area, Hannan St, has fine Victorian and Edwardian buildings. Here visitors can visit the Hannon Hotel, Ex­change Hot­el, Palace Hot­el, Old Aust­ral­ia Hotel and York Hotel. Imp­ortant civ­ic buildings in the area include the Town Hall (1908) and the School of Mines Building. 

York and Orient Hotels, 1898

The Exchange Hotel is central, with the Palace Hotel to right.

In the late 1890s, Kalgoorlie’s streets were full of progress as the wealth generated in the gold mines was displayed in grand, impres­s­ive architecture. As a result, the role of hotels was crucial to the gold­fields’ social and econ­om­ic life. If mines were the sources of the miner's wages, the hotels were the treasuries into which a lot of it was poured. They provided drinks, food and accommodation, AND provid­ed men with com­f­ort­­­able surroundings.

For a city that stretches just 67sq km with a current population of 30,000+ people, the volume of pubs in Kalgoorlie was excessive.. and is now impressive. In the early 1900s, when the Goldfields were dominant, there were 93 hot­els and 8 brew­er­ies in the town. C.Y O'Connor (1843-1902) was West Australia’s Chief Engineer who created the col­ony's railways, water supply, roads and harbours. Before O’Connor estab­lished the pipeline, water was scarce and beer was better!

Most interesting pubs, architecturally-speaking:
1] The Kal­goor­­lie Hotel in Hannon St was designed in the Federation architectural style (built 1897) and is one of the oldest build­ings with a balcony in town. After dark, Judd’s Pub is popular with reg­ul­ar live music and for touring bands. The name Judd refers to publican James Judd Mahony who ran the pub from the 1960s-80s.

2] Paddy’s Irish Bar at the Exchange Hotel (1900) was designed for the Wilkie Bros who were cont­rac­t­ors for the Southern Cross to Kal­goorlie Railway line. The two complex storeys are made up of bricks, iron and a timber balustrade, a corner tower and corrugated galvan­ised iron gabled roof.

3] York Hotel opened in Feb 1901. Located over the road from the Govt Buildings Complex, this very ornate hotel was design­ed by Dan­iel Edmunds. He practised architecture in Kal­goorlie in 1899-1912 and was responsible for the City Markets. The eastern main entrance opened into a luxurious lounge hall, from which the main staircase led to the bedrooms above. Note the hand­some circular dome for light, stamped metal ceilings and finely carved woodwork.

4] One of the city's most historic pub is the Palace Hotel (1897) in Han­nan St, built for the huge sum of £17,000. Bec­ause the town was awash with gold money, Palace Hotel was designed to be the most lux­ur­ious hotel outside Perth, with its own electric­ity and wat­er proc­ess­ing plant. This two-storey hotel was made from stone quarried from the local Ashlar quarries, and the furn­it­ure was supp­lied from Melbourne. With its prominent corner position in the town, the Pal­ace Hotel has been the scene of many famous public speeches deliv­er­ed from the balconies to the street.

One of the Palace Hotel’s regulars in its early days was Her­bert Hoover (1874-1964), who as a young US mining engineer worked in the Gold­fields for several years. Hoover had fallen for a local barmaid before he returned home to marry his love and to continue his mining career in China. Long before Hoover became the U.S Presid­ent in 1929, his parting gift to the hotel was the elab­orate­ly carved mirror still in the foyer.

5] Boulder, now part of Kalgoor­lie, has 8 pubs. Tattersalls was built as a two-storey hotel on a corner site, designed in my favour­ite Fed­er­ation Fil­igree style c1890-c1915. The building once had a veranda and balcony that extended across the facades. The exterior features a balustraded parapet; and a triangular pediment that high­lights the entrance and the arched sash wind­ows. Importantly there is a bar named for the world-famous billiards star and Kalgoorlie local, Walter Lindrum (1898–1960).

6] Criterion Hotel was built in the Federation Free style, a small but imp­ortant part of the Hannan St streetscape. Built to the foot­path line with a balustraded parapet and highly decorative ped­i­ment, the timber ver­anda extends the length of the facade. It also has an unusual para­pet and some leadlight glazing in the street frontage.

7] At a licensing court in Jun 1900, plans for the stunning Vict­or­ian Oriental Hotel at Cassidy and Hannan Sts corner were pre­sented: a pub building with 12 bed­rooms near the York Hotel. Some money for the con­st­ruction came from the Wilkie Bros who built the rail line from South­ern Cross to Kalgoorlie, making it Kalgoorlie’s most exotic architecture.

  

The Australia Hotel, Kalgoorlie

York Hotel, Kalgoorlie

Exchange Hotel, Kalgoorlie

Kalgoorlie Hotel

Because of high maintenance costs, The Oriental Hotel was to be dem­olished in 1972 to make way for a car park, but within hours an in­jun­ct­ion was taken out; thousands of people had signed a petition to stop the destruction. Then fire erupted in the hotel and it could not be saved. Anger over the damage stopped further development.

The Kalgoorlie Race Riots started in Jan 1934 when min­er-sportsman George E Jordan was twice eject­ed from the Hannans Hotel by Italian barman Claudio Matta­boni. When Jordan re­turned to the hotel the fol­l­owing day to fight Mattaboni, he fell, broke his skull and soon died in hospital. Rumours that Mattab­oni had murd­ered Jordan sparked rioting, violence and looting of migrant-run facil­ities, the riots starting AT Hannans Hotel. The old Amalfi Restaur­ant was also burnt down.

Today the pubs are still flooded with miners (and tourists) after work, just as they were 120 years ago. And today Gold­fields Tourism Network runs excellent pub tours in Kalgoorlie and Boulder.

Photo credits