WHEN Police Sergeant Mark Bradbury arrived in Pallamallawa in the 1950s, he was surprised there wasn’t a hotel in the village.

Locals had been lobbying licensing courts and local councils for a watering hole for years, ever since the Pioneer Hotel burnt to the ground in January, 1922.

At a subsequent inquiry into the blaze, which also took out several shops and offices on Bingara Street, Coroner Phineas Rosenthal, a Moree chemist, found the premises of the Pioneer Hotel were destroyed by fire, but “whether by accident or otherwise, the evidence adduced does not enable me to say”.

Pallamallawa, 20 miles east of Moree, subsequently went without a watering hole for nearly 40 years – until Police Sergeant Mark Bradbury lobbed in town.

The calls for a community hotel at Pallamallawa first rang out in the 1940s, about 20 years after the Pioneer Hotel was felled by fire.

In October, 1946, Minister for Justice Robert Downing told Member for Barwon, Roy Heferen, the power to establish a community hotel at Pallamallawa was in the hands of the local Boolooroo Shire Council.

Mr Downing said a council could purchase any other estate or interest in the premises, including the licence of the licensee.

“I would suggest the Pallamallawa Progress Association consult its local council with a view to appropriate action,” he told Mr Heferen.

In 1948, a letter from the association to Boolooroo Shire Council requesting a meeting to select a site for the proposed community hotel was despatched.

At the meeting, a site for a Pallamallawa Community Hotel was confirmed, with “council awaiting their financial report before making a decision regarding the proposal”.

At the time, the North West Champion reported “a hotel in Pallamallawa, which is the centre of the area, is not only desirable but essential, and from a financial point of view, should be a very good revenue-producing asset”.

However, the wheels of progress were slow.

A site was decided – measuring two house blocks totalling one acre in size – but the proposal sat on the backburner for several years.

In the 1950s, Pallamallawa born-and-raised local Ernie Munn was appointed president of the local progress association.

Mr Munn, along with fellow local Les McLachlan, renewed the push to get a hotel re-established in Pallamallawa.

Their earnest request was strongly supported by Member for Barwon Geoff Crawford, who replaced Roy Heferen in 1950.

“At least three applications have been made for hotels in my electorate in respect of centres that are just beginning to grow,” Mr Crawford said.

“Hotels are needed at Weemelah, Pallamallawa and North Star. Special licences should be created for country centres.

“Such licences should be issued with the provision they can never be transferred to another centre and can be used only in the centre to which they have been allocated.

“In my area, I have also two places where hotels have burned down and have not been rebuilt.

“The Licensing Court should adopt a firm policy concerning hotels that have burned down, and not rebuilt. If the Licensing Court adopts a proper attitude in this matter it will not be long before there will be new hotels in these areas,” Mr Crawford said.

Ernie Munn’s son, 93-year-old Whiddon Moree resident Ron Munn, said his old man went through some tough times during the early 1900s.

“A small town was deprived of a hotel by fire, with the owner deciding not to rebuild. I believe he took the license with him, thus leaving Pallamallawa without a hotel,” Ron said.

“This lasted for some time. My father, Ernie, who was born in the village on April 30, 1909, became president of the progress association along with a newcomer to the town, Mr Les McLachlan.

“Dad decided to apply for another licence after having no luck for years with the Licencing Court.

“That is, until the new police sergeant, Mark Bradbury, came to Pallamallawa.

“He asked the question, ‘why don’t you have a hotel here’, and was told the town was not big enough to support one,” Ron said.

“The police sergeant said ‘I know how to get this to the Licensing Court’ and told dad to write a letter. He said he’d sign the letter and send it away.

“’My bloody oath’, dad told the policeman,” Ron laughed.

“A couple of months down the track, dad received a notice to present himself to an address in Sydney on a prescribed date and they would discuss the application.

“Upon returning home, the news was good, and notices were sent out for someone to buy the licence.

“All the locals were talked out of it by a well-off publican in Moree, who told them they would do no good in Pally, but finally a person from Goondiwindi applied to buy the licence,” Ron said.

“He had the back-up financially to build a hotel and all the timber was sent to the site ready to go. “Unfortunately, the person passed away, but a new buyer was soon found – Harold Cummins of the Coolatai hotel.

“An auction was organised for the timber, which Harold bought, and again it was ready to go.

“Finally the hotel got underway,” Ron said.

Pallamallawa locals then firmly put the word “community” into the term ‘Pallamallawa Community Hotel’.

“Every person available during their spare time was there to help carry timber, use saws, and lift sections into place,” Ron said.

“The hotel went up in reasonably good time and was soon open for business.

“My father, Ernie, was the first man to get a beer across the bar and where he sat that day was his spot at the bar until he passed away many years later.

“The pub breathed life back into the village and it’s a pub that is still very strong today,” Ron said.

The Golden Grain Hotel in Pallamallawa was officially opened in 1963.

Ron later assumed his old man’s role at the head of the Pallamallawa Progress Association, with Les McLachlan as secretary.

Their next target was town water for Pallamallawa.

“I started a campaign for town water,” Ron said.

“We had no luck for some time, until the Moree health inspector, Carl Brooker, was approached.

“We got him on side and kept fighting, and finally got the thumbs-up for town water in the 1980s,” he said.

About 10 years ago, the Golden Grain Hotel was facing potential closure, until a syndicate of local farmers, headed up by Gary Taunton, Stuart Tighe and the late Anthony Diprose, purchased the premises in 2017.

After major renovations in 2020, the  Golden Grain Hotel – rebranded the Pally Pub – is one of the most popular watering holes in the district.

The history of hotels in Pallamallawa is deep, and stretches back to the 1860s.

James McHugh Corrigan and his wife Elizabeth established the Pallamallawa Hotel in 1866. When James passed away in 1874, Elizabeth ran the hotel for the next four years.

Charles Russell assumed the license in 1878 then closed the pub doors for good in 1883.

In 1879 a second hotel and store – the Pioneer Hotel – was built by Edward Gwydir Pearce, Elizabeth’s son from a previous marriage, about one mile west of the present site of Pallamallawa.

When the village was surveyed and land lots released in the early 1880s, a new hotel was built on Bingara Street and the name Pioneer Hotel was transferred to the new building.

The original building still operated as a hotel, meaning there were two pubs within one mile of each other for several years.

Charles Boughton Sr was Pioneer Hotel licensee from 1883 until 1891 and was followed by a succession of owners.

In the early hours of January 4, 1922 the Pioneer Hotel and several other buildings at Pallamallawa, including the offices of Strange and Kingham Auctioneers, were destroyed by fire.

The licensee at the time was Ernest Charles Cavanagh, who suffered serious burns when rescuing his wife and children from the burning building.

At a subsequent inquiry headed up by Coroner Phineas Rosenthal, a Moree chemist, Pallamallawa Police Constable David Rose said the blaze was first spotted by local resident David Blunt.

“He came to the police station and informed me that Cavanagh’s hotel was on fire. I ran up to the fire, and when I got there the whole of the main building was ablaze,” Rose said.

“I went round to the back of the premises. I looked carefully completely round the building, and I saw nothing that could throw any light on the cause of the fire. I went across to an old blacksmith’s shop and saw Mr Cavanagh, the licensee, lying down on a mattress with his legs bandaged from burns.

“At the time I arrived, there was no possible chance of saving any of the furniture or contents of the main building of the hotel.”

Coroner Rosenthal found the premises of the Pioneer Hotel, situated on Bingara street, Pallamallawa, were destroyed by fire on January 4, 1922, but “whether by accident or otherwise, the evidence adduced does not enable me to say”.

Pallamallawa subsequently went without a watering hole for nearly 40 years – until Police Sergeant Mark Bradbury arrived in town and helped Ernie Munn and Les McLachlan get the wheels of progress rolling again.

Words and Image: Bill Poulos