State Library of South Australia

William Creek Hotel [B 74345/3] • Photograph

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Summary

View of the outside of the William Creek Hotel in the late afternoon. The photographer comments, "I arrived in William Creek at 2pm when the heat was at its most intense, naturally I made my way into the bar of the William Creek Hotel where I sort relief from the hostile environment outside. Like a lot of Outback hotels, the timber and corrugated iron pub, which dates back to 1887, has a bar which looks like a giant visitors' book, due to the fact that over the years it has been adorned with business cards, hand scrawled notes, bras, jocks and anything else not nailed down. The Hotel started out as a boarding house circa 1886, then it became a store, wine bar, and once again a boarding house shortly thereafter. There are no records that have been found telling of when it became a hotel. The bar in the William Creek Hotel was originally the bar of the Coward Springs Hotel. When I was there in January the back room of the hotel was full of workers of different nationalities who were employed by the big mining companies to drilling test holes each night searching for the next big mother load, they were all seated around a table quietly chatting to one another as they eat their evening meals. I was surprised by the small amount of alcohol being consumed by the mine workers who normally have a reputation as being big drinkers (as I saw in Western Australia's Pilbara region). One of the workers later told me on an average night he and his fellow worker consumed 12 litres of water a night just to try and stay hydrated and that consuming alcohol was not an option due to the fact that it knocked you around to much whilst working in the desert. The Hotel is presently run by Trevor Wright, who is the un-official mayor of William Creek due to the fact that he owns every building in town. Trevor is also the founder and most senior pilot for Wright Air, a small airline that specializes in outback scenic flights, Aboriginal Art tours and air craft charter from William Creek and Coober Pedy. William Creek is the closest town to Lake Eyre, so of course Wright Air typically spends most of it's time taking tourists on flights over Lake Eyre and the surrounding region."

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Physical description

1 photograph : colour

Dates / Publication details

January 2013

Photographer

Clark, Darren

Collections

Part of Darren Clark Collection
Part of William Creek Collection

Subject

Hotels -- South Australia -- William Creek
William Creek (S.A.)

Catalogue record

Return to catalogue

Digitisation information

Date

15/04/2015

Format

image/tiff

Resolution

6,159 x 4,100 pixels (25.3 MP)

Size

151.55 MB

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