RENMARK HOTEL 2002: Riverland Region of South Australia

Any way you look at it the Renmark hotel is an impressive pub. At one stage it had two hundred and forty rooms enough to house and feed an army of fruit pickers and those who worked on the paddle steamers that piled their trade up and down the river. But the pub has come a long way from it's earliest beginnings as Meissner's Accommodation Hotel back in 1897.

In fact, when Renmark sprang to life as an Irrigation Colony under the Chaffey Brothers, the irrigation experts from Canada, the pub wasn't meant to be there. The Chaffeys wanted Renmark to remain a "dry" town. But the locals would have none of that as current Manager, Shane Seekamp explains:

"There was a lot of sly grogging going on so the community got together and formulated an idea to set up a hotel under Community Licence which was the first in the British Empire. That was in 1897. So the money from the Community Hotel goes back to the community."

Shane says the idea wasn't fully embraced at the time with some. There were a lot of people that were against alcohol. But there were others who relished the funds going back to community. In the end everyone seemed happy with the result.

So happy in fact that it became one of the fastest growing pubs in the state. In 1902 further extensions saw a new two storey building added and by 1935 the third storey was added making the Renmark Hotel a show case of the art deco style of the time.

Seven years later the sheer size of the building would make it a pivotal place in the defense of the Riverland. Following the bombing of Darwin in 1942, an air spotter's tower was erected. The volunteers scanning the skies for any signs of Japanese attack.

"In terms of military history the pub played it's role in another fascinating story. That of the legendary adventurer and larrikin Breaker Morrant. In fact the man behind the front bar at the Renmark Hotel, Andrew Balfour Olgilvie is the great grandson of the bloke who enlisted for the Boer war with Harry Morant after they left nearby Paringa Station where they'd worked as horse breakers."

"Apparently he rode his horse straight through the bar in his younger years. So how much trouble he got into I've no idea."

Plenty in fact - Morrant the horse breaker, bar room brawler, soldier and poet would later be tried by a military court for his treatment of Boer prisoners. He would become the subject of one of the South Australia Film Corporation's most successful movies.

Breaker Morrant's story ended when he faced a Military Court Marshal and was executed in 1902.His story is just one of the many at the Renmark Hotel on Murray Avenue. A hotel room costs $60 per night. To book email info@postcards-sa.com.au