There was to be no accommodation provided but meals would be plentiful. There were trucks, caravans, fourwheel drive vehicles and cars, even horse-drawn wagons. The picture shows one section set aside for camping and there was another larger area off to the right of the picture. I slept in my car in this second area - not comfortable but acceptable! Descendants and interested people came from all over Australia, and even from overseas.

The activities on the site were extensive, with the erection of marquees, tents, toilets, washing facilities. A special large and fine stone with a plate attached to it, recognising the occasion, was to be unveiled. A tree-planting ceremony was to be performed by a descendant of the people who eventually owned the property which included Old Gilgunnia. Events were to be organised, displays of children's paintings and many other presentations of various types. It all became a village in its own right.

And What was the History of this Wonderful Event?

Yet there were people there well before that 1895 date. The founders of Old Gilgunnia were known to the locals to be Henry Kruge and his wife Sidwell nee Willcocks who had been travelling from Clare in South Australia, perhaps to the major town in the outback of New South Wales, Bourke. As hawkers in their bullock wagon, they moved along the river systems of South Australia and New South Wales, sometime around the early 1860s. After they crossed the Lachlan and were roughly half way to Bourke, they came to a valley of trees and long grass with hills around. It is said that hills dotted with native pines, outcrops of rocks and a wonderful display of wildflowers reminded Sidwell of her home in Clare.

The practical side of the decision to set up home there would have been foremost in Henry's vision of the future because it could be a halfway stopping place between the River Murray and Bourke with a Wayside Inn, a store for replenishment of various essential goods, a blacksmithy and carpentry shop. Viewed from our historical perspective, Henry was obviously capable in blacksmithing and the operation of a sawmill. He had originated from Norway. Sidwell was quite able to run a store and a wayside inn, or Shanty as such places were called. With grocery items available and a liquor licence, it is not surprising that a small village settlement grew up in the area. While we have no fixed date for this decision-making, they were definitely in residence in the late 1860s as Henry had acquired a liquor licence, as much as 600 acres of land and quite a few animals.

In 1869, we do know that Henry and Sidwell had a shortage of water brought on by a severe and lasting drought so that they were forced to move themselves and their stock nearer to the River Darling water on the Priory Station. They met with three well-sinkers while they were at the Priory Station and were shown some rock samples. Sidwell recognised that the highly coloured rock shown her was copper ore. The rains came and they moved back to Gilgunnia where Henry is said to have smelted some of the ore in his blacksmith forge for the well-sinkers. He had poured the copper metal into a groove he had made in the ground and they made haste for Bourke. The subsequent events have been described elsewhere with the well-sinkers and others being given, at Bourke in October 1869, a conditional mining lease at what is now Cobar.

The Wayside Inn becomes the Gilgunnia Hotel

In 1878, a Post Office was opened at the Hotel, with mail carried in on passing coaches and other forms of conveyance. The mailmen were given meals and lodgings at the Hotel as were many travellers. Mail was such an important commodity for remote settlements, villages and town that contracts were let, requiring that it had to be carried on a reliable and regular basis. Leila Alderdice mentions the reference in the Hay Standard of 26 June 1873 that a new horseback postal line, once a week between Bourke and Cobar, had been let to Malcolm Morrison of Walgett at £130.16.0 per annum. Either he or another contractor probably became the horseback mailman between Cobar, Hillston and Gilgunnia after 1873.

The sawmill (driven by a steam engine) was another part of Henry's operations, supplying much needed timber for huts, houses and other buildings. Later, it was even more important as part of the requirement for timber supplies to the gold mines. In the picture, Henry is standing in front of his steam engine house, with his thumbs characteristically stuck in the waistcoat, just as he was in the hotel photograph above. Henry's blacksmith shop was much in demand too, as though it was a present day Service Station, as Leila notes! From the family history of this present Web writer, it was not just a matter of a blacksmith making and replacing shoes on horses. There were always problems with wheels, bearings and other metal components on wagons, carts, coaches and other family conveyances.
A wheelwright was an essential part of a smithy for cracked rims or broken wheels with the fixing of steel rims or repair of the wheel's timber structure, just as repair of punctures and replacement of tyres are considered essential today.

Each of these enterprises gave work for a number of men and women who joined the small community. It is not surprising that a photograph of the hotel is still around showing Henry and Sidwell Kruge (centre numbered 1 and 2) surrounded by staff and customers in front of the Gilgunnia Hotel. The Hotel remained in existence for many years though it was ultimately destroyed by fire, much to the dismay of the owners of that much more recent time, 1976. A great deal of the activity moved over to the New Gilgunnia village when it was established after the discovery of gold in April 1895. A town plan had been developed in Sydney on a site which seemed set to be the focus of the road system, east/west and north/south.

The Centenary Memorial to New Gilgunnia Village

Re-Consecration of the Gilgunnia Cemetery

You can read more of this special Centenary event in the other pages on the Menu list.