The Gladstane House is the imposing background in this photo of the funeral of (W.J Parkhill?), with the I.O.O.F. band playing on return from graveside.
W.J. Parkhill was the “Largest Man in Midland,” according to Osborne.
The subject of our sketch, however, is the hotel.
Mr. Thomas Gladstane built and owned the hotel in 1885. Subsequent owners were numerous until 1905.
Osborne tells us, in 1939, that there was a, “splendid hotel built by Dr. G.E. Tanner.”
All through the period, the Georgian Hotel was about 75 rooms and commodious sheds and yards for horses, vehicles and eventually bus lines. A dining room, smoking room, shoe-shine parlour and all the sundries of a busy hotel in an equally busy tourist town.
This author has heard, from reliable sources, that many dinners were accompanied by libations and much frivolity as they described it without any salient details.
Such is history.
Today Maurice’s - Your Independent Grocer holds that corner stand and the original foundation of the old hotels remain to this day.
René Hackstetter April 29, 2022.
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