North Perth Hotel, corner Charles Street and Scarborough Beach Road C1920. Photo: State Library of Western Australia.
Christmas Beer Lost!
Fifteen dozen bottles of Christmas beer were lost when this lorry sank into a hole in the yard of the North Perth Hotel.
Fifteen dozen of beer were smashed beyond all recovery in the backyard of the North Perth Hotel today, but an S.O.S. soon made good the loss in stock. A malevolent ‘dry’ well did the damage.
The accident happened when a motor-truck, carrying a load of over 5½ tons, entered the yard of the hotel, on the corner of North Beach road and Charles-street.
Weighing about 8 tons in all, the truck was coming to a stand still.
One of the rear wheels suddenly sank through the yard pavement, tilt-in the truck at a sharp angle, and throwing cases of beer to the ground.
There was a crash of breaking glass, and the contents of about fifteen dozen bottles gushed over the ground. Subsequent examination showed that the wheel had sunk at a spot where a dry well previously existed.
About six years ago a horse fell through the yard at the same spot. The hole was filled in, but evidently settlement of the earth had left only a thin crust of gravel over a small hole. A clothes-line post effected a good save, as it was so situated that it held back a large number of crates of beer, which, although tipped at a perilous angle, were firmly wedged in position by the post.
– Daily News (Perth, WA), Tuesday 19 December 1933.
- The North Perth Hotel was established in the 1880s and was demolished and replaced with a new hotel in 1962. The hotel’s name unfortunately changed to the ‘Vegas Hotel’ in the 1980s, and it traded at the busy intersection until 1994, when that too was demolished. Sadly a McDonalds Restaurant and petrol station now sit on the site of the North Perth Hotel. The following images, courtesy of the State Library of Western Australia, show the newly completed North Perth Hotel in 1962, the pub when it traded as The Vegas in the 1980s, and in 1994 during demolition. The last Google Streetview image shows the site in 2017.
Categories: Perth Hotels, Western Australia hotels
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