August 2017, updated July 25 2020

The cry of ‘Fire!’ was heard many times in Deniliquin particularly in the 19th Century as businesses went up in flames, the majority were accidents but there were some that were arson with fatal consequences

Royal Hotel – 1858
Royal Hotel – 1859
Royal Hotel – 1861
Wanderer Inn – 1867
Gibson Brothers – 1876 (fence)
Beehive Store – 1876
Smith’s Drapery Store – 1876 (End Street)
Town Hall – 1878
M’Culloch and Co – 1878
Jefferson’s Chemist Shop – 1878
Napier Street Fire – 1880 (four shops destroyed)
John Smith’s Store – 1880
School of Arts – June 23 1882
Globe Hotel – 1883 (other shops destroyed too)
Police Barracks – 1883
Commercial Hotel – 1884 (four deaths)
National Hotel – 1884
Mr Rae’s Drapery – 1886
Pyke’s Hotel – 1887
Exchange Hotel – 1888
Mr Rae’s Drapery & Dublin Hotel – 1892
‘Fire in old Hotel in George Street’ (St George Hotel???) – 1893
Galbraith’s Union Hotel – 1894
Cressy Street Fire – 1895 (Hardware Store)
Napier & George Street Fire – 1895 (Five Shops destroyed, Moltme’s Corner)
Black Swan Hotel – 1896 (five additional shops destroyed too, firefighters on strike)
Cressy Street Fire – 1898 (Arson of Hairdresser/Tobacconist shop )
Napier Street Fire – 1899 (Hairdressers, Wine Sellers and Chemist)
D&M Railway Carriage & Engine Sheds – 1900
Sandhurst Hotel – 1901 (1 death)
Mort and Watson’s Drapery and Grocery (Cressy St) – 1902
Drapery on Napier Street – 1902
Filson’s Stores Stables – 1902
Globe Hotel – 1903 (fire prevented from spreading from curtains)
Men’s Quarters of Freezing Works – 1911
Pumping House of Water Works – 1912
Freezing Works – 1914 (2000 tons of firewood & 100 yards of shed)
Cressy Street Fire (Barber’s store) – 1914 (Tom Collins Jr injured)
Cressy Street Fire (Seymour’s) – 1915
Lyceum Theatre – 1920 (film caught fire)
Railway Station – 1924
Riverine Brewery Co – 1927 (Shed and Stables)
Butter Factory (North Deniliquin) – 1928 (damaged factory and steam laundry)
M. M Thomson’s Bakehouse – 1930
Blacksmith’s Shop – 1932
Globe Hotel – 1934 (Storeroom explosion)
2QN – 1939
The Independent – 1946
CWA Rest Room and Baby Health Centre – 1948
St Michael’s Covenant of Mercy and Catholic School – 1951
Deniliquin Gun Club – 1972
Permewans – 1980
Deniboota – 1980’s
Deniliquin Auto Electrical – 1983 (three businesses also destroyed/affected)
Kevin Cole Real Estate – 1983 (two other businesses affected)
Beaurepaires – late 1990’s
Target – 2016
Green Pepper Pizza – 2016
TLC Real Estate + Red Rose Diner – 2018

May 8 2021

Listed here are fires that occurred either started in or spread to Deniliquin’s Hotels, this list will be improved over time.

This list began after plain research into local hotels started to reveal that fire was a common theme particularly in the 19th Century.

1858 – Royal Hotel
1859 – Royal Hotel
1861 – Royal Hotel (Stables, 1 death)
1867 – Wanderer Inn
1879 – Commercial Hotel (laundry room destroyed)
1883 – Globe Hotel
1884 – National Hotel
1884 – Commercial Hotel (Four deaths)**
1887 – Pyke’s Hotel
1888 – Exchange Hotel
1892 – Dublin Hotel
1893 – ‘Fire in old Hotel in George Street’ (St George Hotel???)
1894 – Galbraith’s Union Hotel
1896 – Black Swan Hotel*
1901 – Sandhurst Hotel (1 death)
1903 – Globe Hotel (curtains caught fire, quickly extinguished)
1905 – Bridge Hotel
1908 – Oddfellows Hotel (small dwelling at the rear)
1924 – Railway Refreshment Rooms
1934 – Donovan’s Hotel (Edward River Hotel?)
1934 – Globe Hotel

* The Black Swan Hotel fire is notable for the reason that the Fire Brigade was on strike over a pay issue and residents had to put it out themselves after an hour of brigade refusal.

** The Commercial Hotel Fire was judged to have been deliberately lit as the fire started in two different locations.

Search started on July 5 2017 and ended on February 28 2018

Whilst working with Deniliquin History in Photos to figure out the history of the Lyceum Hall/Theatre, our attention was drawn to the a small article from August 1936 that said a Theatre would be built in Cressy Street on the land of the Methodist Church.

This got our attention because to our knowledge no Theatre was built on Cressy Street and so we began searching for the full story.

Our first clue was that large portions of Cressy Street were auctioned off in the 1930’s with prices record setting in parts.

One of these sales was land where the Methodist Church stood, the Church had a magnificent history as it was built in 1871 and reports of it celebrating anniversary after anniversary are in The Independent which copies thankfully still exists online on Trove.

First we thought the Methodist Church must of existed on the Waring Gardens side of Cressy Street because all the other Churches of the time were there and when we read the Deniliquin Independent was next door to the church we tried mapping out where it could of been.

As we are not very well versed in religion it took some time to unravel all the Church identities to figure out it was not or couldn’t have been on the Waring Gardens side of the street despite both sides of the street once being picket fenced in pictures.

We found plenty of references to the Church but no address or mentions on what was on either side of the church, in those days everyone seemed to know where a shop or church was so there was no need to add an address.

The next phase was to examine all possible photos of Cressy Street and compare to the one image DHIP had of the Church (see below)

Our biggest clue was the roof of the Church, if we were going to find the location we were going to have to find that roof somewhere in a picture.

As mentioned earlier, parts of Cressy Street were auctioned off and three banks were built in the 1930’s, the Westpac, ANZ and Commonwealth, all at different times in the decade.

A 1934 photo of Westpac under construction shown something on the left hand side, a roof that seemingly matched the roof of the Church (see below).

A photo around 1936 shows the well remembered former Commonwealth Bank now next to Westpac and next to it should be Douglas Bros. followed by a roof that has the characteristics of the Methodist Church (centre of picture).

Where the white roof is you see a dark rectangle above it, that would have to be a chimney and most likely belongs to the Court House Hotel.

Another postcard photo from later on in the 1930’s (see above) shows more changes as you can now see where Devour is but the roof of the church now gone from the image.

In March 1937 the Paneretto Brothers (owners of Broadway Café) made way for Riverina Amusements Pty Ltd who planned their own cinema and potentially that would of been The Regent.

These two events and the knowledge of what happens in the future led to the theory that the Theatre plan was scrapped and an article found in The Independent confirmed that the land was now in the hands of Cable, Walker and Douglas.

One frustration of pinpointing the Church location was that we couldn’t pin down where The Independent had their office.

It wasn’t until 1938 that the Methodist Church had its last hurrah and was closed in favour of their new Church, which still stands today on the corner of Harrison and Edwardes Street with the original foundation stone intact in the building.

E.B Cable and C. Walker were again in the news in late 1938 as they were looking for tenders for a two story building in Deniliquin.

The ad said E.B Cable and C.M Walker but no mention of R.D Douglas but we know Douglas Bros was just a bit down the street so it appears they had a large chunk of Cressy Street in their possession.

So why is the above so important? A photo in posted 2015 posted by Michael King has provided us the answer, Take a look at the top of the Independent building and then take a look to the right of it.

The top part matches the building that now houses Vogue Hair Design and when you looked to the right you can see the Church complete with name plate in the photo which places it where Papa’s Rich Noodle and/or Devour is.

So there we have it, despite thoughts that it was where the Newsagents is (another church was reportedly there), the Methodist Church and its land was where Papa’s Rich Noodles stands and went down at least to the end of Rockmans.

The search probably would of been over in seconds if we were lucky enough to have found the photo at the very start but the long winded journey was worth it as the mid 1930’s brought a massive change to Deniliquin, a change that is still visible to us today.

When the Town Hall hosted pictures it was known as Town Hall Pictures but it was re-christened the Regent Theatre and opened in the first week of February 1937, patrons were treated to an opening night of short films, a Popeye cartoon and two features.

‘Piccadilly Jim’ was the first movie shown, a very small sample of the film is on YouTube and can be seen below, a description of the movie can be found here.

The Popeye Cartoon didn’t have a title listed but several were released in 1936 and may of been sent to Deniliquin in 1937 and so we’ve picked one from 1936 for readers.

The second film was called ‘The Devil Is A Sissy’ and featured three of the greatest talents of perhaps all time in Mickey Rooney (played Andy Hardy in the Andy Hardy series of films), Jackie Cooper (later known for playing Perry White in 1970’s – 1980’s Superman movies) and Freddie Bartholomew (starred in Oscar winning movie Captains Courageous with Spencer Tracy), unfortunately there is no clips on YouTube but IMDb has a description of the movie.

The next week had a Clark Gable movie in the form of 1934’s ‘Men in White’ and the Olivia De Havilland movie ‘Alibi Ike’, the trailers of which you can see below.

After this great start, The Regent lived in the Town Hall for another decade and a half before a new cinema was built on the spot of the Lyceum (which in turn was moved to Davidson Street) in 1953.

Ironically there was a plan to build a Theatre where the Methodist Church was in Cressy Street in the late 1930’s but for some currently unknown reason it was never built despite the site changing hands twice.