Showing posts with label Katoomba. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Katoomba. Show all posts

Monday, August 21, 2023

The Plucky Rescuer – the story of Hindman Street, Katoomba

 The origins of the older street names in the Blue Mountains are, in some cases, not easily determined. This is a great shame for, behind the naming of those streets for which we do have information, there are some very interesting stories in¬deed. Hindman Street in Katoomba is a case in point.

The former Five Ways General Store with Cascade St, left,
Neale St, centre and Hindman St, right (John Merriman) 

In the 1880s and 1890s Katoomba was two quite separate townships: the elite tourist destination high on the hill, centred on the palatial Carrington Hotel; and a working class coal mining settlement in the south that drew miners and their families from  other coalfields in the state and beyond. 

The Katoomba coal mine railway c1887 (pf1014)

Samuel Alexander Hindman was a young miner, born in the historic gold mining settlement of Porcupine near Maldon, Victoria in 1863, he grew up in the Newcastle coalfields and had been injured at the Duckenfield Colliery near Hexham in 1879. Samuel arrived in Katoomba in the mid-1880s where he married Birmingham born Isabella Edwards (1962-1893), daughter of Henry and Isabella Edwards who ran the Centennial Hotel near Katoomba Falls, catering mainly to the miners of South Katoomba. Henry was a pugilist of some note and conducted bouts in a small stadium he had built in the hotel grounds.

The Centennial Hotel in south Katoomba 1895 (pf455)

Samuel and Isabella’s first child Emily was born in 1886 and a second, Henry, followed two years later, both births being registered in Lithgow. Samuel laboured in the Hartley Vale coal mines through 1887, until returning to Katoomba in 1888. By this time mining activities below Katoomba had begun to decrease. The seams were becoming exhausted, returns from sales were reduced and miners had to move on. So in 1889 Samuel packed up the family with all their belongings and embarked for New Zealand, where he obtained work in a colliery in the small North Island town of Huntly. A town that became, in the 20th Century, the site of a the largest coal and gas-fired power station in New Zealand and now burns round 800,000 tonnes of coal annually. It was here that fate dealt the family a terrible blow.

On the 22nd December, 1890, an attempt to start a new drive went wrong and four miners were buried when the tunnel collapsed. Samuel was among those who were first at the scene and lead the desperate battle to rescue the trapped men. ‘The Plucky Rescuer Seriously Injured’, ran the newspaper story in the Auckland Star of December 24, 1890:  

A THRILL of horror ran through the quiet little village of Huntley a few weeks ago, when it was known that a serious accident had happened in the coal mine. For a moment all was excitement, and men, women and children, seized with one wild impulse, rushed towards the mouth of the mine. The mine is only a hundred yards or so from the village, and in a very few minutes all the villagers were crowded round the mouth of the pit. But rumour had exaggerated the tale, and soon the minds of most were quieted in regard to their own nearest and dearest, for those at the mouth of the pit were able to say that the accident had but four victims. That news allayed many a fear, but the intense excitement remained. All the long night and all the next day a crowd hung round the spot. Men stood there with set faces and hands clenched, women wept and pitied the suffering ones.

After several hours two of the miners were found, unable to move but alive. Hindman had his arm around one of them and was trying to pull him out when a second fall of earth crashed down, burying the original victims and seriously injuring their would-be rescuer. The attending doctor declared Hindman's case to be hopeless and he was removed to Hamilton Hospital. There he lingered for four months before his death on the 8th April, 1891. Early rate books show that Hindman Street was named by the Katoomba Municipal Council later that year.

The details of the accident and Hindman's heroism and subsequent death were featured in the Katoomba press. "He was", said the editor of the Katoomba Times, "well known in the district and great sympathy is felt for his family."

Isabella Hindman and her children returned to Katoomba to live near her family and, in 1893, she opened a general store in Cascade St at the top of Hindman Street. She may in fact have lived in the shop, later known as the Five Ways General Store, now a private home that still stands in a residential area at the intersection of Hindman St, Neale St, North and South Cascade St and Edwards St. 

Plan of Katoomba (1918) extract 
 Hindman St highlighted                

Neale St is marked on a 1912 map as the ‘Main Road from Katoomba Mines & Falls’, a path many tired and dirty miners would have trudged at shift end, from the dark, dripping tunnels under Katoomba. It wasn't long, however, before Isabella too was struck down in tragic circumstances and after a painful illness died on the 13th August, 1893.

The Katoomba Times recorded:

On Sunday morning last Mrs. S. Hindman breathed her last and left behind three little children and a large number of relatives to mourn their loss. The poor woman, during the 31 years of her life, experienced a far greater portion of trouble than the average mortal. 

Few, indeed, suffered as she suffered, and few would so bravely bare what she endured. Her husband (the late Mr. S. Hindman) it will be remembered was two years ago killed while endeavoring to save a comrade in a coal mine at New Zealand. Shortly after this sad event, the widow came to Katoomba and opened a small general store. She, however, at this time had a cancer growing in her breast, but so long as she could ply her needle she toiled hard to provide for herself and her young family. 

Some months ago she went under a very serious operation in the hope of getting rid of her affliction, and it was thought and hoped with success. She rallied for a time, but the cancer grew again and the poor woman for the last two months or more suffered intense agony, and succumbed to the disease on Sunday morning. On Monday afternoon her remains were interred in the Katoomba cemetery. 

A large number of people followed the corpse to its last resting place. At the grave the Rev. J. H. Maclean read the solemn burial service of the Church of England and at the conclusion made a few appropriate remarks to those who assembled to pay their last tribute of respect to one who bad won tbc esteem of all with whom she came in contact. Three little children have lost a kind indulgent mother and we hope they will never forget her who did so much for them and who sacrificed so much that they should be cared for. Mr. John Chandler, undertaker, &c., of Katoomba, conducted the funeral.

Hindman Street is now a quiet backwater away from the hustle and bustle of the town, but the tragic lives of two Blue Mountains' early citizens are still commemorated in the name.

*****

Author - John Low, Blue Mountains Library
Originally published in the Blue Mountains Weekender 1993
Revised by John Merriman, Blue Mountains Library 2023  

Images are from the Local Studies Collection unless otherwise noted.

References

Online newspaper articles

Terrible Mining Accident In New Zealand. (1891, January 17). Katoomba Times (NSW : 1889 - 1894), p. 4. Retrieved August 9, 2023, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article194111278 

The Late Mr. Sam. Hindman. (1891, April 18). Katoomba Times (NSW : 1889 - 1894), p. 2. Retrieved August 9, 2023, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article194114212 

The Late Mrs. Hindman. (1893, August 18). Katoomba Times (NSW : 1889 - 1894), p. 2. Retrieved August 9, 2023, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article194110452 

Links

Huntly power station

Coal Q&A Huntly

Duckenfield colliery   

Books

Street whys : the origins of Blue Mountains City street names, Christopher J. Woods, 1997

Happy Days, Blue Mountains guest houses remembered, Gwen Silvey, 1996.


*****



Monday, August 30, 2021

Katoomba Town Clock

The original Rotary Town Clock and arch with marching girls
and band during the Woolfiesta parade, April 1963


Beginning in 12th century Europe, towns and monasteries built clocks in high towers to strike bells to call the community to prayer. Public clocks played an important timekeeping role in daily life until the 20th century, when accurate watches became affordable. Today the time keeping functions of town clocks are no longer necessary, and they are mainly built and preserved for traditional, decorative, and artistic reasons.

Blue Mountains City Council had originally intended that a town clock be incorporated into the superstructure of a proposed rail overbridge to replace the level crossing at Katoomba, but as this did not seem to be a project likely to be implemented within the near future, the Rotary Club of Katoomba wrote to the Council early in 1956 offering to provide a clock for public benefit, if the Council would arrange a suitable structure.

 Katoomba Rotary had been looking for a project to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the charting of the Katoomba Club. Local architect Gerald Corne, brother of Les Corne, president of the club in 1955 - 56 and later a mayor of the City, was invited to draw up plans featuring two boomerangs in the supporting arch with the Rotary wheel to frame the clock.

Council thanked the Club for its offer and made enquiries to various towns, including Cronulla, in order to ascertain a suitable place for such a public clock, with the idea then of conferring with the Club as to the siting of this amenity. The intersection of Katoomba and Main Streets was suggested, also the Carrington Bus Shelter Shed as it was then. Rotary favoured this latter position as the most suitable.

At the time Alderman Hand said that a public clock had been erected at Cronulla, sited on the Commonwealth Bank building, but this had been provided by the Bank itself, and he thought that some other premises might be suitable in Katoomba. Following the Council's investigations and various conferences with the Rotary Club, it was agreed in August 1957 that the Council would provide and finance the cost of a supporting arch, opposite the Carrington, to an amount not exceeding £1,000 ($2,000) and the cost of the provision of the clock would be borne by the Club which would also supply the plans drawn by up Gerald Corne. It was agreed that Rotary would provide the clock at an estimated cost of £250.

Tenders were invited for construction of the arch with all of the work to be carried out by Council staff, as well as the purchase of the clock, the total cost being £1,177 ($2,354). These costs were made known to the Rotary Club which then decided, without any request from the Council, that it would bear the whole of the costs involved so that the Council would not incur any expenditure and the project would stand as a gift to the people of the area, although the Club was not able to forward a cheque immediately for the whole amount incurred.

 

Town Clock design blueprint, Gerald Corne

In October 1956 the preliminary plans had been submitted to the club by Gerald Corne, and ways and means of financing the purchase of the clock were discussed. A series of barbecues held in Megalong Valley by Harry Hammon and his committee were continued to raise funds for the clock. The Caledonian Society, a dedicated group who regularly held dances at the California Guest house in aid of local charities and good causes, agreed to run a dance for the town clock project, subsequently handing a cheque for £20 to the Rotary Club through their president, Mr. Sid Mavris. A fashion parade held in conjunction with the Quota club of Katoomba, put on by Jack and Marj Scott, resulted in Rotary's share of £31 being added to the fund.

However, the need for a more positive source of funding was apparent. A suggest­ion from club president Stan Jefferies to run a monster art union with television set, a rarity in those days, as the prize, met with some opposition from members at first, but Stan with the tenacity of a bull-dog, or rather, insurance man, at last won the consent of the club and necessary steps were made to implement the plan. Permission was obtained from the Chief Secretary's department and 2/- tickets were printed and ready for selling in January 1957, quite a sum of money in those days.

Town Clock Art Union poster in shop window,
Astor Furniture Katoomba Street

 Early in February 1957 the sketches of the proposed town clock and archway prepared by Gerald Corne were on display. By the end of February, Council had approved the design and voted to spend £1,000 on the arch, £100 of which was to come from the North Katoomba-Leura Town Improvement Loan fund; however the Katoomba Rotarians were unanimous in their decision to pay for the supporting arch as well as the clock. Finance having been obtained from the Commercial Bank of Australia in Main Street, an order was given to Mr. Ralph Symonds, a Sydney manufacturer, to fabricate the arch and supply the clock. In return for the order, Mr. Symonds agreed to supply the clock for £100 less than the original estimated price of £250, a gesture greatly appreciated by the Rotarians.

The added responsibility of paying for the arch as well as the clock emphasised the need for a more concerted effort in raising funds. Sale of tickets in the Art Union had slowed down in the town, with secretary Jack Scott continually urging members to greater efforts. It was felt that saturation point had been reached in the town and consent to explore wider areas was sought. This resulted in the selling of tickets at the G.P.S. rowing regatta on the Nepean River at Penrith as well as at Central station in Sydney; in fact, anywhere a gathering of people suggested a possible vantage point.

Even with these added selling points, the art union was lagging and President Stan came up with tile bright idea of enlisting the help of a chirpy little old lady of over eighty years, Mrs. Robey by name, to sell tickets on a commission basis. It was Mrs Robey's proud boast that she was the best ticket seller on the mountains, so every day she was picked up from her home near Catalina Park by a Rotarian and comfortably set up with table and chair near the Katoomba Post Office on fine days, and quite undeterred would move under the shop awnings on wet days, and sell-tickets she did. Mrs Robey also sang in St. Hilda's Church Choir at the ripe old age of ninety.

Permission to hold a street stall was obtained and this was the first Rotary street stall held on Easter Saturday. The wives of Rotarians, known as Rotariannes, assisted in stocking and operating the stall. Generous prizes were donated by Rotary members – providore, Charlie Colless gave a duck (very topical at Easter); master painter, Jim Crane promised sufficient paint of the winner's choice to paint the exterior of a house; a Stainless steel sink from Bert Lambert’s Hardware; 40 gallons of petrol from fuel agent Len Hansby and two cases of apples from shopkeeper Reg Bartle. Rotariannes worked hard preparing saleable goods, this was before the advent of the inner wheel club of Katoomba, and the stall was a great success adding £78 to the Town Clock fund, with some competitions still to be completed. With the date of the unveiling and handing over of the clock set as May 25th 1957, time was the essence and Easter Saturday with the holiday crowds seemed a most propitious morning.

The Katoomba Town Clock showing the Rotary motto 
Service Above Self

 With the Rotary Town Clock safely suspended from the arch spanning the crest of Katoomba Street, much to the delight and pride of Rotarians and townspeople alike, the unveiling and handing over took place at 4.00 p.m. on Saturday, May 25th 1957. With pardonable pomp and ceremony the unveiling was performed by past first vice-president of Rotary International, Ollie Oberg, his worship the Mayor, Aub Murphy accepted the clock and archway on behalf of the citizens of Katoomba and the City Council. The approximate cost of the archway and clock at the time of unveiling was given as £1200.

 

The Rotary plaque

 Following the unveiling ceremony a cocktail party was held in the Carrington Hotel. In the evening a combined meeting of Penrith, Windsor, Lithgow, Blackheath and Katoomba clubs was held at the Palais Royal, Katoomba Street, then run as a very superior guest house by Sid and Rene March, later the site of the Bible College and now a motel. Notable guests at the dinner were the Mayor and Mayoress, Ald. and Mrs. Aub Murphy, the Honourable A.S. Luchetti, federal member, and Mrs. Luchetti, Mr. Jim Robson, M.L.A., Rotarian Ollie Oberg and Mrs. Oberg, past governor Seymour Shaw; and two Rotary foundation fellows, Bill Knick and Bob Sims from Africa who were guest speakers. A large number of Rotarians and wives from the five clubs, together with represent­atives of many local organisations made the night a wonderful success and worthy extension of Katoomba Rotary’s historic day.

 The entire finance for the Town Clock project had not been raised at the time of the unveiling, so permission was sought for a four weeks' extension of the monster art union. The clock was the largest project carried out by the Rotary Club of Katoomba to that date. A parody of "Underneath the Arches" composed by Stan and Georgie Jefferies was printed on the programme.

 Underneath the Town Clock

Underneath the Town Clock our fellowship is fine,

By the Rotary Town clock we'll always know the time,

Every Rotary fellow and Rotarianne.

Happy when the funds are increasing, the T.V. set is drawn

Service when it's raining; service when it's fine

The arch spanning high above,

Tickets in our pockets no matter where we stray,

For our Rotary Town Clock we’ll work until it’s paid.

 

The Flannagan and Allen version and the Jefferies’ version were sung with great gusto.  

Unfortunately the archway did not stand the test of time and Mountains weather. In 1967 Council staff identified deterioration of the aluminium cladding and internal structure of the arch as a hazard and removed it, not without protests in the press.

“Give Us Back Our Clock!

Katoomba’s clock, main landmark in the shopping area, disappeared like a thief in the night.

But it was not stolen. It was chopped down in a hurry because it had been found to be dangerous.

The Blue Mountains City Council had called tenders for its removal because reports said the supports were decaying.

However when a would-be tenderer examined the pylons, he found one was so badly rotted away that he recommended instant removal.

Distinctive and useful

Heeding that advice, Council arranged for its removal by its own staff in the dead of night – or at least the very early hours of the morning – when traffic was lightest. However residents are complaining that they miss the clock.

Apparently it was erected at the behest of the Katoomba Rotary Club many years ago.

Straddling Katoomba Street, at the top of the hill, the clock was not only a distinctive  land mark, but it was a useful time piece.

Those hurrying for a train always knew whether they had to put in an extra sprint or could ease up for a breather. 

Service clubs could help

The ‘Blue Mountains Advertiser’ has received many complaints about its removal and requests for its reinstatement.

If Rotary, Lions, Apex and Quota – all service clubs with an interest in the town’s progress are not interested individually, perhaps they will combine to restore the clock; or would the new Katoomba Chamber of Commerce take an interest?

But the cry still is, ‘Give us back our clock.”

Blue Mountains Advertiser, June 29, 1967.

 In October 1967 Council called for tenders to supply and erect a steel open web arch with brick work at the base, to a design by G. Sadler and P. Burn.  A local company, A. Grimly of Valley Heights, was successful in gaining the contract at a cost of $900.00

Blue Mountains Advertiser, August 3, 1967

 Rotary had written to Council in November regretting that it would be unable to cover the full cost of $295 to affix the Rotary emblem to the arch. Time was pressing and Council's Chief Electrical Engineer advised that the clock makers need the go-ahead by the end of the month, to avoid the Christmas shut-down delaying delivery until February. The stumbling block seemed to be the Rotary emblem plaque; it was Alderman Thelma Murphy who got the ball rolling. 

QUESTION WITHOUT NOTICE

MINUTE NO. 1708

ALDERMAN T. MURPHY:

66/286/2400,  Erection of Clock on Arch, Katoomba Street, Katoomba.

A motion was moved by Aldermen Murphy and Lloyd that the clock be erected as quickly as possible and that the Rotary plaque be placed in position.

An amendment was moved by Aldermen James and Stuart that Council accept the offer of 50% of the cost of the Rotary emblem from the Rotary Club and that Council meet the balance of the cost.

On being put to the meeting, the amendment was lost and the motion as moved by Aldermen Murphy and Lloyd was carried.

In reply to a question by Alderman Anderson, the Mayor advised that the plaque would be placed in a suitable position on the clock arch and would record the history of the first clock, Alderman Lloyd asked that the Rotary insignia be included on the plaque.

(Council minutes)

The new arch work was completed in July 1968 at the tender cost of $900. Subsequently a new remote control clock was installed at a cost of $1,165.00. Katoomba finally had its clock back. In 1975 Council's Town Planning Department advised that the structure was not aesthetically pleasing and an alternative location and design be examined. Nothing appears to have emerged from this proposal. There is another Blue Mountains town clock located in the shopping centre in Wentworth Falls but that is another story.   

 References:

* Tower clocks - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turret_clock

* Blue Mountains Local Studies vertical file - Katoomba Town Clock

* 'The Rotary Town Clock', presentation by Mrs Georgie Jefferies to Katoomba Rotary Club meeting, 5 March 1984.

All images from the Local Studies collection

John Merriman, Local Studies Librarian

 

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Katoomba Street History Walk

Katoomba St, 1940
Introduction

In its early years Katoomba laid no claim to the status it later achieved among the Mountain towns. While there had been an inn and stock resting place at Pulpit Hill from the 1830s, the town’s real beginnings were with the railway. Towards the end of the 1870s, this lonely mountain outpost began to change dramatically. The official name change to Katoomba occurred in 1878, the same year that businessman John Britty North registered his coal mine at the base of the cliffs near the Orphan Rock. Within a year the high quality of his coal was winning prizes at the Sydney International Exhibition and the small settlement of Katoomba gained a reputation as an important mining centre.

While North was developing his mining enterprise, the leaders of Sydney society also began casting their eyes in the direction of Katoomba. The 1870s had seen the growing popularity of the areas of Springwood  and Mt Wilson as locations for country retreats. The 1880s-90s saw the beginnings of an era of hotels and guest houses in Katoomba and the upper mountains. Shops, schools and a local newspaper appeared and in 1889 the town was gazetted as a municipality. Its first Council was elected in January 1890; it governed a socially divided community – at one extreme a roaring mining camp with slab and weatherboard cottages and hotels, cable ways and horse drawn tramways stretching out into the Megalong and Jamison valleys and at the other a fashionable and wealthy resort high on the hill of Katoomba Street, together they comprised about 100 buildings.

The early visitors who arrived during the 1880s and 1890s were primarily from the privileged classes. They stayed in gracious comfort at stylish establishments like The Carrington, The Leura Coffee Palace (later The Ritz) or The Balmoral and sought the mysteries of nature among the cool fern walks and glens. They had money and leisure and the Blue Mountains offered a hill station retreat from the summer heat and dirt of the city, and the pressures of the political and business world of Sydney.

By the turn of the century economic and social changes were occurring in the wider Australian community which began to produce a more affluent and mobile middle class. Visitors whose preference was for cheaper less palatial accommodation arrived and the patronage of the rich moved elsewhere. As the war clouds began to gather in Europe Katoomba was entering its boom period and in the post war optimism of the 1920s there were over sixty guesthouse operating in the town.

The motor car also revolutionised tourist activity and tourist coach firms flourished in many of the upper mountain towns, some guest houses even kept their own fleet. To the holiday makers and honeymooners who flocked to the guest house during the twenties and thirties, Katoomba was the holiday capital of NSW. They spent the days touring the sights in their charabancs and putting roses in their cheeks in the bracing mountain air; and in the evenings danced, roller-skated and attended the latest moving pictures.

Following the Second World War the Mountains became increasingly suburbanised with cheap land and long travelling hours for commuters; local tourism declined as the coast gained in popularity and cheap overseas travel become possible. The old hotels and guest houses gradually lost patronage and many fell into disrepair, some were demolished, some were converted to nursing homes hostels and a few remain.

By the 1960s and 1970s day trippers arriving by car or bus replaced the long stay tourists and the supermarkets forced many of the old style shop keepers out of business, to be replaced by coffee shops, galleries and souvenir shops.  Yet despite the changes, the economic and other benefits of preserving the extensive original building fabric of Katoomba have finally been acknowledged and much of the old Katoomba Street remains as do some of its stories.

The Sites

Katoomba Street was named before 1882 and is now the main street of the township. The earliest business centre however developed on Main Street, originally the Bathurst Road, in the area of The Balmoral and later The Burlington. This development included the top of Park Street where the Town Hall and Council Chamber were situated, then gradually spread to the intersection at the top of Katoomba Street as the railway station became a centre of activity; then around the corner and down the hill to Waratah Street. A number of building inventories and heritage surveys have been carried out in recent years and these together with early photographs, surviving building plans and rate records, form the basis of this presentation. New information however will continue to be discovered as research continues. 

Railway goods yard c.1900

  1. Katoomba Railway Station 1881
Following the completion of the railway line to Mt Victoria in May 1868, the area was known as The Crushers, the name of the quarry established to supply the railway with track ballast. Trains from the West also found The Crushers a convenient place to adjust their loads before the steep descent to Penrith. The present station building replaced an earlier timber platform and station building erected in 1881. Until motor cars become affordable in the post war period and the highway improved, most people arrived at Katoomba by train and were conveyed to guest houses by local cabbies, the most famous being the local poet, songster, raconteur and favoured driver of royalty and the aristocracy, Harry Peckman.

Harry Peckman c.1910
Peckman was born in Kurrajong in 1846, and in the 1880s, with his older brother John, started a hire service of wagonettes with a fleet of 30 horses. In 1884 he rescued a tourist, a Captain Black, who had become lost in the wilderness at Echo Point for over a day thinking Katoomba was below him and trying to find a way down; he had written a last message to his family when the Peckmans found him. Harry also did the surveying for the Federal Pass walking track in 1900. In 1868 at the age of 21 he was engaged to drive the Duke of Edinburgh’s royal party to view the Wentworth Falls waterfall, thus began a long association with many heads of state, parliamentarians and international visitors, including the Governor General, Lord Carrington, Sir Frederick Darley, Chief Justice of NSW and owner of Lilianfels. The brothers established a daily coach service to Jenolan Caves in 1889 and in 1892 he married Emily Sarah McAveny from the Megalong Valley, he was 46, she just 15. A few years earlier Emily’s grandmother, had murdered her grandfather with an axe while he was drunk, because of his ‘cool treatment’ of her. Her death sentence was commuted to life and she died 10 years later in Darlinghurst goal. By 1905 the Peckman’s fortunes were in decline and Harry spent his final years as a cabbie on the rank until he was granted a government pension at the age of 83, five years before his death. Peckman’s Road was named after him around 1900.

Railway crossing with James' corner
  1. James’ Corner 1925  Inter-war free classical
George James (1855-1938) was a prominent citizen, butcher and businessman, man of property, alderman and twice mayor of Katoomba Council (1909-1910, 1914-16). As a member of the Council Parks and Reserves Committee he was active in establishing many of the lookouts and walking tracks we have today. Among the many buildings he owned and erected in Katoomba, he considered the James’ Building his proudest achievement for the town, his home McClintock in Abbotsford Rd is now a B&B. See also 40-44 Katoomba St. Four of his five sons also became butchers and operated James Bros Quality Butchers at Circular Quay in the 1920s.

The Carrington c.1900
  1. The Carrington. Federation free classical, Art Deco, Art Nouveau styles
In 1882 the building of the Great Western Hotel marked the emergence of Katoomba as more than just a mining town. In 1886 it was sold by the widow of the original owner, Harry Rowell, to FC Goyder a squatter from Queensland and first mayor of Katoomba who improved its facilities,  added wings to doubling its accommodation and obtained the patronage of the then Governor General Lord Carrington in whose honour it was renamed. In 1905 AL Peacock leased the hotel from Goyder and in 1905 it was advertised as ‘the largest and best known tourist hotel in the Southern Hemisphere’. He also served as an alderman on Council and in 1907 was instrumental in bringing a town water supply and the sewerage service to Katoomba. Coincidentally this also allowed the Carrington to advertise ‘a splendid service of lavatories, baths and water closets upon each floor’.

By 1913 the wealthy newspaper magnate James Joynton Smith, owner of the Imperial Hotel at Mt Victoria and lessee of the Hydro Majestic at Medlow Bath, had gained control of the Carrington. He built the power station at the rear of the building with its famous tapering octagonal brick chimney and contracted to supply power to Katoomba and the upper mountains until Council built its own power station in 1925. The hotel has continued to dominate Katoomba for over a century.

  1. Carrington Inn Bar 1916 Federation free style.
This building was constructed within the Carrington property by Joynton Smith around 1916, initially as the City Bank of Sydney, later the Australian Bank of Commerce 1918 and the Bank of NSW 1931 and converted to a saloon bar 1933, classified by the National Trust 1978.


  1. Shops 49-57 Katoomba St, post 1922. Inter-War free classical style
Also constructed on Carrington property by Joynton Smith, in front of an older boarding house dating from 1884 which Joynton Smith purchased for his wife and named Clarendon House, this was demolished around 1937. These shops are listed as a local heritage item.

Katoomba Post Office during the 1951 Crossing re-enactment
  1.  Katoomba Post Office 1919-10, 1923, 1971. Federation period free classical style
This was Katoomba’s fifth post office and replaced earlier temporary offices in the railway station (1880), Balmoral House (1885), Main Street (1887, 1895). In the early 1900s the local business community successfully lobbied the Government for a permanent building. The chosen site was on vacant land which was purchased for £1100 in 1907, construction commenced the following year. In 1917 the building was altered to accommodate rest room facilities for the new female staff and in 1923 the first floor addition was made. Note the brick upper storey contrasting with the ground floor stucco. In 1996 the Post Office moved to a new building in Pioneer Place.

The Paragon cocktail lounge with a sprung floor for dancing
  1. The Paragon Café building, 63-67 Katoomba St, 1916, 1925, 1934, 1936. Art Deco, Aztec Odeon (Banquet Hall) and early Modern Ocean Liner styles.
Zacharias (Jack, Zac) Simos (1897-1976) emigrated from the Greek island of Kythera in 1912 with several other Kytheran boys and spent four years working in Greek cafes in Sydney and Tenterfield before establishing a business in Windsor selling ham and eggs and vegetables door to door. In 1916 after improving his English he leased a small a tea shop at 65 Katoomba Street with just four tables and a kitchen in an old weatherboard house at the rear.

After he was naturalised in 1921, Jack Simos purchased the building and set about establishing a high-class refreshment room. He named it the Paragon meaning model of excellence and in 1925 engaged Henry White, architect of the State Theatre, to reconstruct the building in Art Deco style, adding the Banquet Hall in 1934. In 1936 the Blue Room was designed and built by the firm of H & E Sidgreaves who designed the original Washington H Soul pharmacies in Sydney. In 1946 the sculptor Otto Sheen produced the alabaster friezes for the front dining area of the restaurant. They depict figures from Greek mythology including Zeus, Chiron the Centaur, Apollo, the Flight of Icarus and the Judgement of Paris.  

The Simos family home, built in the early 1940s, is the imposing Art Deco ‘Olympus’ on Cliff Drive at Echo Point. Jack Simos died in 1977, two years after The Paragon was registered by the National Trust and placed on the Register of the National Estate. The face of the Paragon to generations of  visitors was his wife Mary, who was born in Elkton, Maryland in 1912, grew up in Kythera and attended an English boarding school in Athens before marrying Jack and coming to Australia in 1920, dying at the age of 88 in 2001. See also 88, 92, 98 Katoomba Street

The Embassy 1930s
    1. Embassy Theatre building 73-75 Katoomba St, 1914, 1933

    The original Empire Theatre was built on this site by AH Small and A Seller in a Federation Free Style design,  the original 1914 building was designed by Harry Rupert Goyder and Edward Hewlett Hogburn, and opened 16 January 1915. In 1920 Seller sold the property to Katoomba Theatres, part of the Joynton Smith Management Trust, who later acquired the Kings Theatre, later the Savoy, across the road. First described in contemporary accounts as ‘prettily designed’ and with ‘big crowds flocking nightly to view the pictures’, it was refurbished in1936 with a shorter auditorium and renamed the Embassy Theatre with a seating capacity of 843. It retained the name until it was sold to G J Coles & Co for £50,000 in 1954 and remodeled by McDonald Downie & Assoc. It was more recently described as a valuable piece of cinematic history showing two decorative styles separated by 22 years. Since the 1970s the main building has been series of discount stores and the original milk bar has become a fish & chip shop.


G J Coles & Co. display window May 1956 

  1. Froma House 1867 and Froma Lane 1913
Built by bachelor and Member for Hartley in the Legislative Assembly, James Henry Neale around 1867, Froma House is the first known dwelling of any permanence, apart from the railway gatehouse, built in the central area of Katoomba. Neale, a butcher by trade, and his brother Thomas, acquired a 400 acre portion of land running from The Crushers down to Echo Point, covering much of the area of central Katoomba, for £1 an acre in 1875, land which included several waterfalls.

Around 1878 he disposed of most of the land, then known as the Katoomba Estate, to the consortium which built the Great Western Hotel, later to become The Carrington. Neale was interested in bush walking and developed many of the scenic tracks and reserves around Katoomba, all radiating from Froma. Neale Street, named before 1882, follows his original track to Katoomba Falls.

In the 1870s, while on a picnic with Harry Peckman, Neale took a local Kanimbla Aboriginal woman, known as Black Bet or Princess Betsy, to Katoomba Falls and asked her what the place was called, her answer being ‘Katoom-bah’, translated then as ‘place of falling water’. However recent research has shown that this also refers to an edible fern root that was a staple Aboriginal food collected from the Megalong and Jamieson valleys. Neale died in 1890 in Wentworth Falls and was given a large Methodist funeral.

In 1883 Froma was bought by Michael Metcalf (1813-1890), a merchant, customs agent and prominent Sydney Anglican, who lived there with his family until 1911. By 1914 old Froma had gone, replaced by a new kindergarten school of six rooms, close behind the new post office, which had recently been erected in rapidly developing Katoomba Street.

Froma Lane was established as a right of way to connect Park and Katoomba streets and was described in the Echo of 29.08.1913 as a ‘very crooked alley that follows the tortuous plotting of the various allotments’ and contains the postmaster’s residence, now ‘Froma Court’.


  1.   Raeburn 1916  145 Katoomba St. (PF800)
William Raeburn Copeland (1855-1928) was born in Rothiemay, Scotland where he trained as a stone mason arriving in Australia in1882. He worked for JB North on the mine tramway and for the railways, before commencing as a speculative builder in Katoomba until the bank crash of 1891. He built a number of stone residences in Katoomba Street and the presbytery of St Canice’s Church and claimed his son was the first white child born in Leura. In 1897 he opened the first shop in Katoomba street, a general store and timber yard which was burnt down to be replaced by the present building in 1916.

The Central Buildings
  1.   Central Buildings - corner Katoomba and Gang Gang Streets  1915  Federation Free Style
In style it compliments the James’ building opposite and during the level crossing period its imposing stepped façade formed a prominent part of the town entry. The current buildings replaced a smaller group of single storey buildings sometime after 1905. Rates records show that the site was occupied by shops in 1901 and the first floor was being used as flats in 1937. This was also one of the Post Office sites. Theo Poulos real estate has been here long enough for it to now be called Poulos’ Corner.

The skating rink under the Savoy
  1.   The Savoy Theatre complex  8-32 Katoomba Street,  1910 1936 1946,  Inter-War Functionalist Style,  Art Deco shopfronts
This site was formerly occupied by the Kings Theatre, sometimes referred to as the King George Theatre which was one of the first picture theatres in NSW. The Kings Theatre was constructed about 1910 and historic photos show an imposing two storey brick and stucco building in a Federation Free Style. In 1920 it was owned by Katoomba Theatres Ltd., part of the Joynton Smith management trust and operated as a live theatre, a Palais de Dance and also contained a Turkish bath.

Prior to this the site was occupied by single storey timber shops  with awnings which rate records show existed in 1901. According to the 1926 rate records the site was occupied by ‘casino, shops and offices’. By 1931 the Kings theatre had closed and became a shop and warehouse before the building was demolished in 1937 to make way for the Savoy complex which opened on 18th December of that year. The basement, formerly a billiard room, was used as a boys club in the early 1940s, then licensed as the Trocadero Theatre in 1946 with a seating capacity of 500 people and later as a roller skating rink. Both had been closed for some years before a fire caused extensive internal damage to the complex in June 1960.

This building is significant as the only historical example in NSW of one cinema built above another, and is a good representative example of the cinema architecture of Guy Crick and Bruce Furse, important cinema specialists in NSW, whilst the shopfronts are outstanding examples of Interwar Functionalist design.

Tabrett's building under construction 1904
  1.   Tabrett’s Building 34-38 Katoomba Street  1904  Federation Free Style/Anglo-Dutch pediment above parapet 
In 1901 the land was owned by E Marx who was probably associated with the theatre group adjoining. By December 1904 the current building had been constructed on the site with three shops, the builder was James Ray (Jim) Anderson for the owner J Tabrett. The Tabrett family was well respected in Katoomba and operated several prominent businesses including auctioneers, estate agents, Mountain Coaching and Motoring Co., tourist agents taking bookings for Jenolan Caves and a boot shop. Tabrett and Co were still operating an estate agency from this building in 1954. The Art Deco style Café Florida operated in the central shop in the early 1940s and its shop front remains intact although the original dining booths, lighting and furnishings were removed during refurbishment for a new business in 1993. 

James Anderson, a Scottish carpenter arrived in Katoomba with his wife Alice in 1903 and worked as a master builder for the next 40 years, his three sons Raymond, Leslie and Victor, also becoming builders. His daughters Alice and Enid were the first waitresses to be employed at the Paragon Café outside of the Simos family. James is marked with an X in the above photo.

Many of the town’s early carpenters and builders were Scots, including Joseph Nimmo who arrived from Lanarkshire in 1879 aged 28 (died 1917), he operated a grocery and timber merchant business in Katoomba street on the site of Copeland’s store, owned the Railway Hotel, later Hotel Gearin in the 1890s, was Mayor of Katoomba in 1892 and a foremost Freemason. Joseph’s son Robert worked in the Katoomba post office for many years and married Alice, daughter of Katoomba’s famous butcher ‘Honest’ George James in 1918.


  1.   Shops - 40-44 Katoomba Street 1902  Federation/Anglo-Dutch
This building was owned by George James from 1920, in the second half of the 1930s the shops included the Blue Mountains Butchery, A West bootmaker, Penfold’s Wines. The first floor façade is described as among the finest and most intact Edwardian fabric in the town centre. The western shoe store at the bottom of Katoomba Street was owned by the west family for may years.

Top of Katoomba Street showing the Penfold's Wine Bar c.1915

  1.   Shops - Aroney’s  46-54 Katoomba Street  Federation Free Style  1921 date on parapet
Rates records show that shops have operated on this site since 1901 and by the 1920s the three shops were owned by George James. In the 1930s the shops were owned by Penfold’s Wines, Zacharias Simos and Mr. Veripatis a fishmonger respectively. By the 1940s the third shop was known as Aroney’s Fish & Oyster Café and later as Aroney’s Café Milk Bar which was sold in the 1990s and is now called Journey.


  1.   ANZ Bank 56-64 Katoomba Street 1985
The façade is a remodeling of an older building, the walls of which are still visible at the rear. Rates records show a house occupied the site in 1901 and by the 1920 two shops owned by a Mr. Goldstein; in 1938  it was the Paris Café offering ‘meals and fountain drinks’ owned by a Mr. Comnino. Remodeling took place around 1984 for the current bank.


  1.   Shop - Webb’s  66 Katoomba Street  1912  Federation Free Classical
Purpose built bank offices, in remarkably good condition, occupied by the Australian Bank of Commerce then after a merger in 1931 the Bank of NSW, renovated 1934 to a design by Peddle, Thorpe & Walker; for many years Webb’s Fashion Salon, the exclusive ladies wear shop in the town and more recently Raine & Horne real estate.

St Hilda's 1940s
  1. St Hilda’s Church of England 1914 foundation stone, 1915 opened, Federation Gothic Style, tower is a later date (1960?)
This was designed by prominent 20th century architect John Burcham Clamp, a partner of Walter Burley Griffin, built by Mr. Johnson of Leura. Replaces the first Anglican church built in 1885 know as the School Church of St Hilda built through the activity of the Rev. Simons, the incumbent at Blackheath. The first clergyman was the Rev. Power; the present building was dedicated by J C Wright, Archbishop of Sydney, on 16th September 1914.


  1.   Commonwealth Bank  68  Katoomba Street 1926  Interwar Free Classical design by the Dept. of the Interior
The Commonwealth Savings Bank opened in Katoomba in 1913 and the present building was erected in 1926; it became the Commonwealth Bank in 1931. Significant as representative of a number of Commonwealth Banks constructed in the state during the 1920s in this style and evidence of the commercial consolidation of Katoomba during that period.


  1.   Shops 81-83 Katoomba Street 1935, Pepperday’s Building
From the mid 1920s these premises housed Pepperday’s Mercery Store and Helen Hunter’s Ladies Hairdressing salon and gift store. In 1958 Woolworths opened its Food Market here. The façade underwent later modification and during the 1990s was occupied by Crazy Prices, Go-Lo, and more recently a computer shop.

Woolworths Food Market adjacent to the main store, opening day 1958 


  1.   Shops  Woolworths building 87 Katoomba Street  1939  Interwar 1930s Functionalist Style
Opened 23 June 1939 as a purpose designed retail outlet for the Woolworths chain. Prior to this in the 1930s the site was the premises of S Kensell Grocers and the Civic Fruit Vegetable and Confectionery Shop. It is significant as one of the few remaining examples of a chain of purpose-designed stores from the period. During the 1990s was occupied by Crazy Prices and more recently an office supplies store.


  1.   Bank  86 Katoomba Street  1956-7  Post war stripped classical style
An unimproved property was purchased by the Bank of NSW in November 1938 and premises were erected in 1956-7. One of a number of purpose designed bank buildings of the Post War era in Katoomba Street which provide a positive and monumental element within the streetscape. Later is was the State Bank and more recently Mr. Pickwick’s Bookshop.


  1.   Shops Goyder Bros. & Tozzi’s 88-92  Katoomba Street 1920s  Interwar Free Classical Style
Goyder Bros. were a prominent Katoomba family with interests in real estate, auctions, tours and holiday cottages. Tozzi’s building was altered in 1939 by the then owner Mr. Simos, local architect H L Blackwood.

  1.   Shops  98  Katoomba Street 1940  Interwar Art Deco
Alterations to an early building carried out in 1940 for Mr. Simos, design by local architect H L Blackwood, shopfront is post war, with cement rendered façade, and metal frame windows from 1940 modification. Katoomba Record shop in 1980s, recently a rug shop.


  1.   Shops  108-114  Katoomba Street  1910  Federation Free Classical
Two storeys with exuberant parapet detailing, cement moldings and green ceramic tiles in the pedimented sections; the fine lead light shop fronts date from the 1920s.
In the mid 1930s T J Andrews occupied 108-110 and the first Soper Bros. replaced a ladies hairdresser in 112-114 before Soper Chambers was built next door in the late 1930s. Now it is Higgins & Higgins Solicitors and RSPCA Op Shop.


  1.   Shops  113-117 Katoomba Street  Thompson’s Shoes  St. George  Arnold’s
During mid 1930s Arnold’s Drapery occupied 117; McIntyre’s Katoomba Boot Palace 113 now Thompson’s Shoes.


  1.   Soper Chambers  118 Katoomba Street 1922
Two storey building, first floor façade of face bricks divided into three sections by wide piers rising above parapet level, stepped parapet with signage in central position, multi-paned double hung window sashes.

Purpose built for Soper Bros real estate agents.

  1.   Canberra Flats  State Bank  122-126 Katoomba Street 1905+, 1956
From 1905 guesthouse ‘Aircourt’, 1921 ‘Springhill’, 1930 ‘Craiglee’, renamed Canberra Flats, purchased 1950 by the Rural Bank and rebuilt as present building opened December 1956 with banking chamber, offices, flats and restaurant in basement. The State Bank dated from the 1980s and Colonial State Bank the 1990s, now business stationary supplies operated by Katoomba Newsagency. Façade and sides were originally clad in ceramic tiles now painted.


  1.   Allawah Flats 123-129b Katoomba Street, Inter-war 1930s,  c.1935
Three storey building, upper two storeys brick divided into three sections by wide brick piers. Pairs of large double hung windows with multi-paned sashes and concrete lintels, terracotta tile roof.

Looking south 1930s
  1.  Shop Miss Duff  Dressmaker 128 Katoomba Street  1910
During the 1930s occupied by Miss Duff dressmaker and later by a cleaner and presser 1938, the original verandah was removed and the first floor window and awning was constructed in the period 1933-38. The Duff family has been associated with the Blue Mountains for over 150 years. Robert ‘Bob’ Duff was born in Hartley 1845, his parents having arrived from Scotland five years earlier. At the age of nineteen Bob married sixteen year old Caroline Smith from Campbelltown and the couple settled in the Megalong Valley, farming 1100 acres on the Cox’s River. Between seasons Bob worked his team of bullocks, sometimes on the road for up to five months. Physically he cut an imposing figure, standing 6’3” and weighing 17 stone. Bob Duff died in March 1893, killed while breaking in a colt; he was forty eight years old and left a family of sixteen children. His wife Caroline eventually moved her family to Blackheath where she died in 1942 at the age of ninety seven.


  1.   Gloucester Flats  130-134 Katoomba Street, Inter-war 1930s,  c.1935
Three storey building with terracotta tiles roof contained by parapet ends. Intact shop fronts, upper storeys finished with cement render, masonry portions of bay windows finished with rough cast; timber framed double hung windows.

  1.   Shops  XOOX  131-133 Katoomba Street  Interwar Free Classical
First floor verandas were originally open with balustrading and column supports.


  1.   Shop  Ayr Lodge  140  Katoomba Street  1937
Deep window canopy with colour blended terracotta shingles. The original 1926 house sold to Dr. and Mrs. Alcorn in 1929, by 1937 site occupied by shops and offices, became known as Ayr Lodge by 1943.


  1.   Uniting Church  142  Katoomba Street  1888  1907
This was originally Katoomba Methodist Church, the oldest church in Katoomba, foundation stone 8th  September 1888, opened 17 November 1888, extensions 27 January 1907. Brick building embellished by cement rendered copings, moldings and spires arranged along the western parapet, terracotta inset panel high on main façade.


  1.   Shops  153-155 Katoomba Street  1905-1910  ‘CWC’ in parapet
In the second half of the 1930s the building was occupied by W Smith bootmaker now Peter Sudich Art Supplies & Framing (155) and Johnson & Sharp bakers (153), The Buttery.

  1.   St. Canice’s Roman Catholic Church,  157 Katoomba Street, foundation stone laid 1903, Federation Gothic
Cement rendered building with pointed stone openings, stone trimming around some openings, rusticated stone at corners and at buttresses. Squat tower with shallow hipped roof at south-western corner. Terracotta roof tiles.

  1.   St. Canice’s Presbytery  1905, Federation Bungalow
Two storey building with large hipped roof covered in terracotta tiles. Two storey verandah on western side with timber posts and timber shingles at first floor level which also features a cantilevered balcony. Cement rendered walls elsewhere.   

Harry Phillips' shop
  1.   Shops 157-159 Katoomba Street  1910-15,  Interwar Free Classical 1920s
In the winter of 1908 Harry Phillips, an unemployed printing machinist, suffering from work injuries to both hands which cost him his job, arrived in Katoomba to recuperate. After three weeks camping out with his wife Isobel and their only child Isobel, the landscape had made such an impression that he decided to settle in the area permanently and established a small confectionery and photographic business at 159 Katoomba Street and by 1912 had moved to 179 Katoomba Street. As business expanded he combined his talent for photography with his skill as a printer, producing the Blue Mountains view books for which he has become best known.

Harry Phillips brought a passionate intensity to the presentation and promotion of the Mountains that had never been seen before and would go to any length for a picture often waiting hours for the right conditions. His books were sent to the trenches on the Great War and his photos hung in Parliament House. A sober and religiously minded man of slight, wiry figure and always formally attired, his friends would joke when there was mist about, that, ‘Harry’s happy’.  Harry and Isobel were both born in Ballarat into families of 11 children. Note classically derived details of later Interwar first floor addition: panels, plaques, Greek Key band. Gemglow Jewelers (157), Serene’s Café (159), Elephant Bean Café.


  1.   Shops 165-171 Katoomba Street  1910-1915,  Federation Free Classical
In 1930s occupied by Mitchell’s Drapers & Mercers; Young’s Chinese Restaurant (169) Fine Flowers (167) Mostly Rugs (165)



John Merriman 2008, 2016, 2018, 2021 
Local Studies Librarian  
Blue Mountains City Library

All images from the Local Studies collection at Springwood Library.


References:

§  Pictorial Memories - Blue Mountains, John Low, 1991
§  A Building Census of Katoomba Street, Mark Broderick, 1997
§  Katoomba Town Centre Heritage Study, Rod Howard Heritage Conservation, 1999
§  Blue Mountains City Library Local Studies Section: files, rate books, indexes, photographs
§  The Prince of Whips, the life and works of the Blue Mountains pioneer Harry Peckman, John Low & Jim Smith, 1993.


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