Midland's rich waterfront history explored

The ships that once regularly visited the town have largely given way to pleasure craft

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1 / 1 Midland's harbour as it appeared in the 1950s. Photo courtesy René Hackstetter.

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Postcard Memories is a weekly series of historic postcard views and photos submitted by René Hackstetter.

Midland’s Challenge. One Hundred and Twenty Years On.

Timber stripped from forests, ships built here gone, the smelter across the bay silent. Winter berth, where twenty grain boats or more lay side by side only a memory. The sound of the cranes at the coal dock silent. Ship building, where behemoths christened and rolled into the water, gone. The mountains of silica, the silly sprinklers watering the dust, gone. All through Dollartown, screen doors knocked to remove the grit....no more...perhaps a good thing.

Each year, the Harbour Master greets the Captain of the first ship through spring ice, with a top hat, marking the arrival of western grain. When the bulk unloaders operate, the fish congregate to eat the falling dust. The gulls are in full force and loud.

Today, pleasure craft and tour boats occupy the slips. The boat building plant is a restaurant and bar, packed with tourists in summer months and struggling in winter.

Midland Boat Works, Downers Yacht Haven and its successor, Central Marine, all leased from the town. Beyond that lies a few desultory boats and a long, empty site waiting for someone to inflame the corporation formed to promote its development.

Hurdles are immense, especially re-building the sea wall, a necessary first step to development, pegged at many millions. Competing with other towns and cities for limited money, the applications have been made and fingers are crossed.

These transformations occurred over one hundred and twenty years or more. The challenge we now face is how to revitalize the waterfront and maintain continuity with our storied past.

Grain is at the centre, the kernel if you will. Barb Rowlandson’s vision of a Butter Tart Festival was prescient, though prophets are without honour in their own country, let alone a ‘prophetess.’

A much-deserved merit award is due Barb - as this link with our fundamental industry, and a major celebration, demonstrate. Kudos.

More to come.