Despite its colonial features, the Heritage Hotel in Old Petrie Town is a recent construction. Modelled on an original 1887 building that once overlooked Petrie township, the hotel’s origins reveal a remarkable story of renewal, relocation and reincarnation.
The earliest reference to a drinking house in the district was in 1867 at Thomas Petrie’s Accommodation House or Hostelry, near today’s entrance to Woolworths in Petrie.
With travellers flocking to the Gympie goldfields, Edwin Willett obtained a country publican’s license to trade in a building he rented from Petrie in North Street, known as the North Pine Hotel. When Petrie subdivided land for the North Pine Terminus Township Estate in 1885, the hotel’s land was listed for sale. Henry Williams was granted a provisional publican’s licence in April 1886 to construct a new hotel, but Henry Gottschalk (previously fined for illegal Sunday trading) held the licence during construction.
Designed and built by Christian Scheller and boasting thirteen bedrooms, the new 22-room premises officially opened in April 1887 opposite the Police Station in River Road, Petrie. Gottschalk operated the hotel until 1899. In 1902, the first female licensee, Mrs Ellen Collins, gave birth to a son at the hotel before the license passed to her husband, Martin Collins, the town’s ambulance operator.
From Fire to Rebirth: The Heritage Hotel Rises Again
By July 1906, Edward McGregor, the licensee at the time, sought approval to relocate the hotel further along River Road. Architect Henry Atkinson called for tenders, and the hotel was slid upon greased logs 140 yards to the corner of Dayboro Road. McGregor had also twice requested road improvements at the new site, but Redcliffe Council deemed these non-urgent matters.
The Baldwin family owned and operated the hotel from 1907 until February 1956, when it was destroyed by fire. Like a Phoenix rising from the ashes, the hotel’s story did not end there. A temporary bar operated until the premises could be re-built, however, the name was changed to Hotel Purcell and later to the Petrie Hotel. In 1995, local businessman Paul Gothard constructed a wooden replica of the 1887 structure at the North Pine Country Park (Old Petrie Town) and the name, North Pine Hotel, was used again.
Today, the hotel has yet another name – The Heritage Hotel and Function Centre – but continues to serve travellers and the community alike at Old Petrie Town, 158 years on from its colonial beginnings.
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