Club Hotel Advertisement
When Bill Faahan was granted one of the four Wayside licences in April 1893, he erected the first hotel – a rough shelter of bush timber and hessian with a bar consisting of series of packing cases on forked sticks – which he called the Club Hotel.
The first load of beer and spirits brought by camel from Southern Cross cost him ₤35. The first drink was served under a salmon gum in the yard of the uncompleted hotel. He sold the first legal drink in Coolgardie.
When the hessian shelter gave way to a more substantial structure of timber and galvanised iron, the need for entertainment led him to purchase a piano and billiard table at Southern Cross which young Edwin Murphy brought by wagon to Coolgardie.
The Club Hotel Bayley Street, Coolgardie ; A parade for the opening of the Coolgardie Railway Station 23 Mar 1896
With the arrival of the piano, impromptu concerts were held every night in the ‘Silver Tail Parlor’ where Eddie Murphy entertained with Scottish and Irish ballads sung in a silver tenor voice. By day he was employed as a marker in the billiard room but was more interested in writing poetry. When Bill Faahan read some of his verses he took him along to see Billy Clare who had just begun publishing the ‘Coolgardie Miner’. And hence the journalistic and writing career of Dryblowerer Murphy began.
The piano was also the one which the notorious murderer Deeming played his way into the affections of many ladies at Southern Cross. His musical skill was sent out in a wired description to police and this finally lead to his capture. The piano was also to save a life. A man dying of thirst near Boorabin heard Murphy play one night on his way to Coolgardie which led him to their camp and saved his life. This famous piano is now in the Coolgardie Museum.
The first man to sing a song to a piano accompaniment in Coolgardie was Tommy Tobias. he sang ‘Old king Cole’. His pianist was car Boyd.
Bill Faahan was a widower when he came to Coolgardie and his second marriage to Cecelia Knighton took place in November of 1894.
The Club Hotel Bayley Street, Coolgardie
By April 1894, the Club Hotel was able to boast of being the first two-storey hotel because of the addition of a weatherboard front of ‘respectable if rather delusive character’. There was a large dining room, a number of bedrooms, and a billiard room leased to J.J. Bowen who increased his and the hotel’s popularity by advertising ‘Free Refreshments to all players on Saturday nights’, adding that these were of a solid and not liquid in nature.
In 1901 the Club Hotel was sold to Charlie Vincent and Judah Lipman who had a large interest in the Lion Brewery. They rebuilt the hotel in brick and stone, adding 20 bedrooms and three sitting rooms which they renamed Tattersall’s Hotel and leased it back to Bill Faahan.
Like many other hotels in Coolgardie, Tattersall’s closed down during the First World War and the bricks and fittings sold and carried away.
Moya Sharp
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Great read..good memories of time at St.Anthony’s…..my mother before me went there in 1929!!!