News

Sanger Street’s history interest

By Robert Muir

Sep 24, 2024

Sanger Street, looking towards the Murray River likely taken in the early 1950s. The large photo was donated by Mrs Gerry Brown and a small one by Mrs Ken Wilmot. Photograph shows grocery shop and butchers on the left, garage and buildings to the Star Hotel. Many cars are in the street, angle parking, and there is a bus also angle parked.

This photo shows Sanger Street with the Globe Hotel quite visible in the left-hand side foreground. There are trees on either side of the street, so photo probably taken before 1914 when the trees were removed to make way for electricity poles. There is a water cart being towed behind a lorry which is probably being pulled by a horse or bullock although neither is visible. There is also a gig on the other side of the street.

A project on the history of premises and businesses in Sanger Street Corowa by Steve Kent is attracting great interest by local residents.

Hold tight - we’re checking permissions before loading more content

Mr Kent spoke for over 30 minutes to some 50 local residents in the museum’s history hour, showed photographs of those horse and buggy days in the town’s main street and enjoyed the session.

Steve Kent with Federation Museum’s Carmel Grigg, Heather Hall, Heather Johnston and Lesley New at the history hour last Thursday.

“It was good because a lot of people are willing to help out with old photographs and information,” he told The Free Press.

Attendees spoke with Mr Kent after his address and amongst themselves about the topic.

The Corowa identity lived in Corowa from 1984 to 1996 and moved back in 2018. “I’ve had connections with Corowa all the way through with family and friends,” the 71-year-old retired finance controller with Uncle Tobys and previously in the finance field in Melbourne said. “This is a project I’ve wanted to do.”

Corowa Historical Society President Carmel Grigg described Mr Kent’s talk as “extremely enlightening”. “People are very interested in the history of Sanger Street, knowing or finding out the buildings now and what they used to be and other things relating to the history,” she said.

“Many people here know of the background to Sanger Street but a lot of people in town or nearby don’t.”

Historical society committee members were delighted with the number of people who listened to Steve, at 2.00pm last Thursday. “We were hoping for a good number,” committee secretary Heather Hall said. They received an excellent response and quickly added more chairs.

Steve won’t put any time frame on his project but would welcome any input from residents.

By Robert Muir

Journalist