Playford Whyalla Hotel: Ron examines some our industrial history in the West Coast region of South Australia
Whyalla is a proud city and one that has played a key role in the industrial development and defence of Australia. As visitors enter the Iron Triangle town, 400 kilometres from Adelaide, they're greeted with an impressive reminder of its past.
Back in the mid eighties the Jubilee 150 Committee brought back more than 680 tonnes of maritime history, the HMAS Whyalla. After years of service as a navy corvette and later as a lighthouse tender, the Whyalla steamed back into town. She was then hauled two kilometres inland in a community project that gives new meaning to the word "dry dock".
The HMAS Whyalla was the first ship built at the BHP Shipyards, courtesy of iron ore deposits discovered at nearby Iron Knob in the Middlebank Ranges. As a result of that iron ore at Iron Knob, BHP decided to go into the iron and steel making business and they built the Newcastle Steelworks.
As local guide, Les Jones told Postcards a few years back, so began one of the most rapid phases of industrialisation in Australia's history - making this place a vital wartime regional centre.
Les Jones, Guide: "During the war years it was actually a secret city called SMC 47. It stood for Small Munitions Centre number 47. And as a result of the war years they did not want to tell anybody what was happening here. And so it became the name."
In postwar Australia, with Whyalla becoming a major centre for Australian steel making and shipbuilding, the town was in need of workers. By the 50s and 60s they were arriving in their thousands and after a day in the steel works or the shipyards, many blokes were in desperate of a beer.
For a generation of workers, the Whyalla Hotel, built in 1933, was the place to be, come the end of a long and thirsty shift. The first owner of the Whyalla Hotel took over the licence of the Jetty Hotel, a tin and timber construction. Regardless of names and licences - this has always been a town that will go to extraordinary lengths to ensure a bloke's beer glass remains full.
It seems that when it comes to beer, "where there's a will there's a way". The owners of the old pub would bring beer in by tugboat all the way from Port Pirie and if the tug didn't arrive they'd send a bullock dray to Port Augusta. It would arrive with about twenty barrels of beer. During World War Two, when rations were in full force, the pub was given a special dispensation to bottle it's own beer, thanks to its status as a defence town.
Back then the Whyalla Hotel underwent a massive expansion with the addition of an extra 38 bedrooms bringing the total to 60. It was a reflection of just how well this town was doing. So too is the renovation undertaken today by current owner John Queen. The dogbox rooms have given way to spacious and well appointed private suites with mod cons and luxuries the old Whyalla Steel worker or ship builder could only dream of. John and his daughter, Jo have breathed new life into a grand old pub, which for ten years or more had seen better days.
John Queen, Playford Whyalla Hotel: "It was terribly vandalised and there had obviously been squatters in it. You could only describe it as a derelict building."
But John could see that the old Whyalla was still structurally sound, with "good bones" as he put it - capable of supporting its conversion into the suite of luxurious serviced apartments known today as The Playford Whyalla. With impressive broad balconies, it still retains the look of a classic Aussie pub. Serviced apartments at the Playford Whyalla start from $150 per night. If you have any further questions please email info@postcards-sa.com.au
Playford Whyalla Hotel
9 -11 Darling Tce
Whyalla
Serviced apartments from $150 per night
Bookings 8644 1188Published 8th November 2009
