A History of the Pubs and Publicans of Avoca 1853-2000 by Phil Waring

Description In the late 1990s, facing retirement after a career as an engineer with the former State Electricity Commission of Victoria, the author developed an interest in family history. It brought him to the Avoca Courthouse and its trove of invaluable information, much of it relating to hotels. Originally envisaged as a sideline from his research on family history, he thought he would spend a few months writing about the pubs and publicans at Landsborough, where several ancestors of his had been publicans. However, the project progressively grew to include the hotels and people associated with the liquor industry across the Pyrenees. It finally settled on an area bounded more or less by the major centres of Maryborough, Beaufort, Ararat, Stawell, and St Arnaud, but deliberately excluded the hotels within these major towns. The work concentrated instead on all the smaller towns and rushes within this arbitrary boundary. Nevertheless, over the date range 1846 (Lexton) to 2000 in the above area, it has gathered the names of nearly 3000 people, nearly 300 hotels, untold numbers of shanties, and much related information. This publication relates specifically to the hotels in and surrounding the town of Avoca. See also: A History of the Pubs and Publicans of Landsborough 1862-2000 Specifications: Publisher: Pyrenees PUBlications Year: 2024 Format: Paperback Pages: 193pp ISBN: 9780645419030