In the 1860s six hotels existed in what is now the Lavington-North Albury area of which five were short lived. They were the Empire, Lavington, Black Range, Riverina previously the Prospector’s Store Hotel, Railway and the Plough Inn that opened in 1859 with George Kilminster, as proprietor. It closed in 1922 when known as the Race Club Hotel.
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Sixteen years after the Race Club Hotel’s closure, Gavan Sarsfield O’Shaughnessy in September 1938 opened the two storied Continental Hotel at the intersection now known as ‘Five Ways.’ While licensed under the name Continental most people referred to the hotel as Sars’, the abbreviation of the proprietor’s second name. Albury born O’Shaughnessy, died in 1967 at age seventy years.
O’Shaughnessy’s stay as licensee was short as by December, Cornelius O’Keefe held the license. It then passed to Elizabeth D Williamson then to Charles C Hunter of Melbourne. Charles R Griffiths was licensee in 1940. In the late 1940s O’Shaughnessy was again licensee.
Husband and wife Bert and Alice Lucas took ownership and running of the hotel between 1953 and 1957. In late 1957 Jack Gibbs was licensee.
Robert B White and Ernie McAlpine purchased the hotel in 1958 renaming it MacWhite’s, a combination of their surnames. Alterations and additions carried out during their ownership included in 1959, the incorporation of two of four Urana Road shops into the hotel proper. Outside, motel units were erected in 1963 off Union Road.
Licensees between 1958 and 1969 included Ernie McAlpine, Ronnie W Archer, Robert B White and Ronald J McCarron. At the transfer of license from White to McCarron in 1969 the licensing court was told that his ownership of the hotel was under the name, ‘Garrison Hotel Pty Ltd.’
In 1970 Bruce Housego of Sydney purchased the hotel then known as the Garrison. In 1997, it was the first hotel in Albury to switch on poker machines. After some thirty years of ownership Housego sold it in 2000 to Tony and Lyn Finn. In mid-2003 the Finns sold to Sydney hotelier Peter Burke.
In 2018 the hotel is known as the Northside and is licensed to Daniel Burke, who took over the running of the hotel in 2003. It is also a landmark on the ‘Five Ways,’ a focal point within the Lavington-North Albury shopping area.
For more articles relating to local history, visit our website at alburyhistory.org.au.
