Albury & District Historical Society

26/09/2025

The Hume Dam 100 years ago, almosr six years into construction. A view of the worksite inside the northern coffer dam, built to keep the work site dry. Three men ride the flying fox. From tower to tower the flying fox spanned 400 metres.
Top left is the flying fox tower, about 25 metres tall. It can move east to west (left to right in photo) on four railway lines enabling materials to be carried to all parts of the construction site. Next to the flying fox tower is the smoke stack of the steam driven electricity generator for the NSW works site.
The northern ‘wing-wall’ is under construction. Foundations of the northern portion of the spillway are complete, the southern end of the spillway had to wait until later in the project.

19/09/2025

A Google Earth image overlaid with a map of the village of Bowna in the approximate position of the village (not to scale), drowned by the rising waters of Lake Hume as it first filled in the early 1930s.
The blue line shows the original path of the Sydney Road (it became the Hume Highway in 1928) as it went along Telegraph Street, the main street of Bowna. The highway was moved to travel around the lake (red line) in about 1930.
The yellow line shows the route of the Hume Freeway from 2009.

12/09/2025

Inside Albury Court House about 1920 - an image from the NSW State Archives. The old Albury Courthouse was completed in 1860. It was built out of local grey granite by Thomas Allen of Albury. In the press gallery there has been a tradition of journalists to carve their names. Many local residents saw the inside of this building!

05/09/2025

The Australian Joint Stock Bank on the corner of Dean and Kiewa streets was built in 1877. The building was described in ‘The Sydney Morning Herald’ in December 1877: “The splendid building erected by the Australian Joint Stock Bank at the corner of Dean and Kiewa streets is just completed. This is by far the handsomest structure of the kind in Albury, and would indeed compare favourably with many of the metropolitan banks.”
The bank became the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney in 1911. They demolished the old building to rebuild in 1936.
After the merger of the National Bank with the CBC bank, the old National Bank building further west on Dean St closed.

29/08/2025

Albury railway refreshment rooms - the well stocked bar area. From 1883, the refreshment rooms had a license to sell liquor, but to rail passengers only. The Melbourne ‘Argus’ reported in July 1883 that “Mr Moses, licensee of the Albury railway refreshment-rooms, has now received his licence for the sale of liquors and this has proved of great convenience to overland travellers.” There were complaints that the process of changing trains at Albury was too fast for passengers to adequately enjoy the hospitality available in the rooms. In 1942 it was reported that soldiers on troop trains were banned from the room “because of certain incidents in special military trains when troops had been allowed to get liquor at railway refreshment bars.”

22/08/2025

Albury & District Historical Society has a new video on our YouTube Channel. The video covers the development of the eastern end of Dean street. After a slow start, in the early 20th development accelerated at that end of the main street. There is a focus on the contribution of the Syrian/Lebanese community and other families who had a role in the commercial development from Olive street to Young street.
Go to https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDzIPypinJegksrO-l2ssVg

15/08/2025

A very muddy corner of Smollett St and Olive St in about 1871 – work is underway building St Patrick’s Church, it was blessed and opened on November 24, 1872. The building to the left of centre is the temporary Catholic Church, St Bridget’s, built in 1858 - it doubled as the Catholic School and continued as a school after St. Patrick’s Church was completed, demolished in 1938. Visible on the left of the old photo is the Mercy convent. The Christian Brothers opened their school (left in the new photo) in 1917, the section visible in the photo is part of the 1931 extension.

08/08/2025

175 YEARS OF ALBURY PUBLIC SCHOOL
"The tenders for the new buildings for the Albury Public School have been examined, and that of Mr. Charles Hardy, contractor of Wagga, for £3400 accepted ... The plans for the new buildings are very handsome, and the school, when finished, will by no means be a disgrace to the town.” ‘Albury Banner,’ May 1, 1891.
The ‘Banner’ followed up on July 15, 1892 with “… the Superior Public School was occupied for the first time on Monday [July 11]. The new structure is very tastefully designed and fitted with all the conveniences and appliances found in the best school buildings of the day. The attendance is now over 600 …”
Tomorrow, August 9, there will be OPEN DAY activities from 11am to 2.30pm, with student performances, open classrooms, history display, merchandise, art show and bbq.

01/08/2025

ALBURY PUBLIC SCHOOL CELEBRATES 175 YEARS. Albury’s first school opened in 1850 as Albury National School on the south-east corner of Dean & Kiewa streets. The school moved to the building shown in these images, fronting Olive street, in January 1862, with Mr & Mrs Dwyer in charge. The ‘Then’ photograph was taken by H G Thomas. The right hand extension was the home of the school principal and has been long demolished. In the ‘Now’ photo, the left hand wing of the building is obscured by the tree.
Next Saturday, August 9, there will be OPEN DAY activities from 11am to 2.30pm, with student performances, open classrooms, history display, merchandise, art show and bbq.

27/07/2025

A great photo supplied by one of our followers.
The photo was taken in the Albury Botanic Gardens and appears to be a group involved in a theatre production. One of our members thought that she may be able to tentatively identify the man at the right hand side, left of the tree with the bow tie as Valentine Flood Nagle.
We would like to be able to identify who the group represent and perhaps a few names.
It will be difficult as the photo is probably about 100 years old. Any help would be appreciated.

25/07/2025

Flooding at the Albury Sportsground, in the early 20th century, possibly 1905, 1906 or 1909. The 'Border Morning Mail' of July 13, 1905 reported "The sports ground in its lowest corner is totally submerged." But the 1906 and 1909 floods were higher. The pavilion shown was used until 1915 when the present grandstand was built.

21/07/2025