Morawa Scene—Article 12: Before There Was a West Side
Here is Article 12 in the series I have been doing for publishing in the Morawa Scene newsletter. If things went as they should have then this article should have been published in the November 2025 issue of the Morawa Scene.
Article 12 talks about some of the businesses and houses that existed on the ‘right’ side (east side) of Morawa back when that side of town was the only side of town. Back when the main road from Perenjori via Koolanooka through to Canna was east of the railway line and there was nothing west of the railway line in Morawa apart from tent dwellings and lean-tos.
Click on the image of the article as published in the Morawa Scene (shown at right) to view an as-published larger version of it.
The previous article can be found here.
As usual the complete text of the article is reproduced below verbatim.
The addition to the masthead for Article 12 is the “Phone No. 2” at the bottom of each of the side pillars.
Hopefully most people found something of interest in my last page (#11) about the naming of Morawa and what it was known as before it became Morawa.
In this 12th edition of my pages about the early days of Morawa and P. H. Lodge & Sons I think I will cover some of the other dwellings and businesses that existed on the ‘right’ (being the east) side of town back when Morawa began. Basically the ones I know about from my father. But first I would bring your attention to the update I have made to the banner. Can you spot it? I’ll tell you at the end.
Anyway, back to the theme for this page being the dwellings and businesses that were on the ‘right’ side of town, being the east side along what became Solomon Terrance sometime between about 1919 and 1930. From what I can determine, what was then the main street of Morawa was possibly not formally named Solomon Terrace until around 1925. Before that I think it was more-or-less an unnamed dirt road.
It is important to remember that the ‘right’ or east side of town was the only side of town until about the early 1920s. Up until about that time, what was then the main road to Morawa came from Perenjori through Bowgada to Koolanooka then down the hill through the lakes on the east side of the railway line to Morawa. Then it went through to Pintharuka still on the east side of the line.
Hence, early Morawa, or South Merkanooka as it was sometimes also referred to then, only existed on the east side of the railway line, as was the case for Pintharuka, Canna, and Gutha. All towns along the Wongan Hills to Mullewa railway line were on the east side of the line.
When a railway station was finally constructed in Morawa, the Station Master’s house was built on Lot 3 on Solomon Terrace. This was likely around 1925.
Morawa’s first ‘real’ Post Office was later built on what was then Lot 4. The Post Office comprised a house behind it for the accommodation of the post master and his family. This structure is still standing.
P. H. Lodge’s shop existed before any other building along what was to became Solomon Terrace and ended up on Lot 6 on the terrace when the lots were surveyed and allocated circa 1925. P. H. Lodge ended up building his home on Lot 5.
The hotel was built on Lots 9 and 10 on the corner of Solomon Terrance and what became Manning Street.
Although the line was put down in 1894 the railway station wasn’t built until 1925. It to was on the ‘right’ side of town conveniently directly across from where the hotel is.
The doctor’s house was on Lot 11. The name of the doctor at the time was Dr. J. J. Hough. Sadly, as can be seen in the clip provided from The Northern Producer newspaper from the 31st of January 1931, Dr. Hough’s house burned down and he was found dead at the back of his house. Interestingly, he apparently died from cyanide poisoning and not from the fire—which he presumably lit.
The butcher, who I think was Mr. Prater at the time, built on Lot 13 of Solomon Terrance. His slaughterhouse was out on the north side of town along what was then the Kadji road but is now the Yalgoo Road. It was about two miles from town.
When Burton’s butcher’s shop was later built on the ‘wrong’ side of town (in the mid-40s as best I can work out) the old butcher’s shop on Solomon Terrace became a café known as the Morawa Café or, more commonly, VandenBerg’s Café. I have had many a hamburger and fish and chips from there growing up in Morawa.
On Lot 15 was a boarding house run by Mrs. McQuillan which my dad told me was originally constructed of white painted (whitewashed) hessian bags sewn together to make walls.
Circa 1937 the Police Station was built on the ‘right’ side of town at the southern end of Solomon Terrace.
A 12 lot reserve was set aside at the corner of Valentine and Granville Streets on the ‘right’ side of town for a school. From my research I don’t think a school was ever constructed there.
Lots 27 and 28 on what became Valentine Street were purchased by P. H. Lodge and were used as stables behind the shop so that farmers coming to his shop to get stores had somewhere that they could rest their horse teams and have them fed and watered while in town.
At the end of the age of horses P. H. Lodge allowed tennis courts to be built on this land. There were outdoor movies shown at the corner of Valentine and Manning streets near the tennis courts.
Sometime late the tennis courts became a men’s rules basketball court.
The change to the banner is the addition of “Phone No. 2” on the pillars on the edges. Yes! The phone number for P. H. Lodge & Sons was Morawa #2.
It would be interesting to know who was Morawa #1 in those days. Initially I thought it might have been the Post Office, but as best I can work out up until the early 1930s P. H. Lodge & Sons was the Post Office. I guess it depends on when the phone exchange and phone lines were installed. If Morawa #1 wasn’t the Post Office then maybe it was the Police Station, assuming even that was there then.
