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Freemasons Hotel in Geraldton

Towns and suburbs close to Geraldton | Hotels in Geraldton

Freemasons Hotel

Freemasons Hotel

  • Fine Dining
  • Motel Style Accommodation
  • Front Bar, Irish Bar
  • 16 different beers on tap.
  • Entertainment

"The Freemasons Hotel is a Geraldton icon.

In the early 1870s, the original Freemasons Hotel commenced business on the site adjacent to today's hotel. In 1891 the Licensee was listed as Onslow Austin Trigg having purchased the site for £9 - a considerable increase from the original sale, reportedly exchanged for a bottle of rum.

The Freemasons Hotel was designed by Henry Stirling Trigg, the only native born architect in the Swan River Colony at that time. No records remain which substantiate the builder of the hotel, but it seems likely that William Trigg, a prominent builder in Geraldton and father of Onslow Austin Trigg, built the present structure.

The hotel's name reportedly comes from the original use of the building as a meeting place for the local Masons. Onslow Trigg and William Jones (Publican 1895-1898) were active Masons in the Geraldton district.

The present Freemasons Hotel was built in 1895. On March 20, 1895 William Henry Jones (previously the Publican of the Geraldton Hotel) applied for a publican's licence for a hotel on the corner of Marine Terrace and Durlacher Street."

-Information courtesy Freemasons Hotel Website, Many Thanks

Freemasons Hotel

Photo April 2008
Photo submitted by Brian McMillan, Many Thanks

"The first advertisement for the new premises appeared in the Geraldton Advertiser on Wednesday July 31, 1895. Little is known of Mr J. Inglis, who is mentioned in the advertisement as a joint Proprietor, except that he owned the Miners' Arms Hotel at Peak Hill.

The Licensee between 1898 and 1907 was Mr Joseph Ernest Burt. After this period, Onslow Austin Trigg became the Licensee once more.

The 1895 hotel was the first building which came into view as visitors disembarked at the railway station. Originally it had a tower which was a great vantage point for views of the bay, and of the town. It was from the Freemasons' tower that the earliest photographs of the township were taken. The tower remained when the roofline was altered in the 1940s, but was removed in 1973 due to damage sustained during the Meckering earthquake of 1968."

79 Marine Tce
Geraldton
Western Australia 6530
Phone:
08 9964 3457
Website:

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