A witness to history

Ever heard of The Newmarket Hotel? What about the Miner's Arms Hotel? Guess which popular Gympie pub they are now known as...

HISTORY LESSON: The Empire Hotel, circa 1872, when it was called the Newmarket Hotel. Soon after it became the Miner's Arms. Picture: Contributed

THE Empire Hotel has been standing proudly in Mary St for the past 147 years.

Starting life as the Newmarket Hotel, it was rebuilt in 1872 as the Miner’s Arms until it changed to the Empire around the time of the First World War.

Since then, this public house has witnessed the changing face of Gympie, while remaining virtually unchanged.

The O’Neill/Corrigan families ran the Miner’s Arms for the first 20 years.

Daniel O’Neill was a popular public figure and sole publican between 1876 and 1877.

Hugh Corrigan took over from O’Neill, but died three years later in 1880.

His widow begged her brother-in-law James to come from New South Wales to run the pub.

He must have been successful because he bought it just 12 months later and ran it for a further eight years.

He became quite wealthy and on his death, there was a battle royal waged over his will.

Patrick Rogers took over in 1889, but disaster struck the family in July that year when their second daughter, Alice, mistakenly ingested rat poison instead of headache powder and died a few hours later.

There have been sightings of a ghostly figure of a young woman in the basement and some believe it is the spirit of Alice Rogers.

“I hated going down there,” said former manager Michelle Lapham.

“Sometimes, when you closed up late at night and you’re the only one there, you would see things out of the corner of your eye. It was creepy.”

CHEERS! Current Empire Hotel owner Lyn Sutton with bar attendant Julie Bedford. Picture: Contributed

The Miner’s Arms was completely inundated by flood in 1893.

The local indigenous people referred to it as “The Big Fella Flood”.

The massive flood, which remains the worst recorded, raised the river level by at least 25m.

The Gympie Times said:

“The water is ... level with the rail of the veranda of the Miner’s Arms Hotel. At 4 o’clock, a line was put down in Mary Street in front of the Gympie Times office which showed there was 15½ft (4.7m) of water at that point, so at the lowest part of the main street, there must be nearly 30ft (9m) of water.”

After those setbacks, the Rogers family celebrated the marriage of their third daughter, Bridget, in 1900, recounted in society pages.

The Miner’s Arms was sold to Robert Dunlea in 1901, for £3850 (around $7500).

The name was changed to the now familiar Empire Hotel in either 1915 or 1916.

Gympie Times and Mary River Mining Gazette

July 20, 1889

A lamentable death by poisoning occurred last night, the victim being Alice Rogers, second daughter of Mr and Mrs Patrick Rogers of the Miner’s Arms Hotel.

The deceased, a native of Gympie, was a fine girl of about 18 years, and was of a bright and happy disposition.

She recently attended the wedding of a friend, and entered gaily into all the festivities.

She looked after her household work with her usual cheerfulness yesterday, however, late in the afternoon, she complained of a headache and retired to rest herself.

Some time after inquiries were made as to how she felt, it was noticed that she looked very ill; it was then discovered she had taken “Rough on Rats” by mistake.

Medical assistance was summoned and came in the persons of Doctors Howe and Geddie, but their services were unavailing.

The poor girl died about half-past eight.

Her parents are almost distracted by the great bereavement that has befallen them with such terrible suddenness, and much sympathy will be generally felt for them.

Gympie Times and Mary River Mining Gazette

February 10, 1900

Before JP Mr J. Bracewell at the Police Court on Thursday, James Ryan was discharged for drunkenness, but fined 20 shillings for disorderly conduct on the premises of the Miner’s Arms Hotel.

Gympie Times and Mary River Mining Gazette

February 23, 1900

The man Thomas Bell, who pleaded guilty at the Police Court on Friday to having in his possession a sack coat (a commonly worn worker’s jacket of the time) he could not satisfactorily account for, and who was subsequently sent to Her Majesty’s gaol in Brisbane for a month, was not at all a bashful individual.

It appears he had previously visited the Police Magistrate, and so worked on our worthy PM’s feelings that he gave him a ticket for rations.

Bell immediately adjourned to the Miner’s Arms Hotel, where he had been staying and purloined the afore-said sack coat.

When arrested he had the ration ticket in his pack and six shillings in his pocket.