THE solid old storage building that now sits at the back of Beaudesert Showgrounds started its life at 90 Brisbane Street as a produce store owned by Bill Rooks, who was on the Queensland Egg Board.
It was built in May 1949 on railway land at Beaudesert Station and raised to road level in 1950 to improve accessibility.
The building has been many things in its lifetime until it had to go to make way for the Beaudesert Town Centre Revitalisation project this year.
Fond memories
Rather than see it go to waste John Wyatt, who had John Wyatt Electrical in the shopfront for many years before renting the space out to Backroads clothing store, offered the sturdy structure to the Beaudesert Show Society and the rest is ongoing history.
Like many locals, Show Society President Ian Harrison remembers the original shop.
“As a child you’d go in there and there’d be little bags of this, little bags of that, you’d buy a dozen eggs or a couple of chooks or a pumpkin,” he said.
“It was a really communal produce store, and Mr Rooks seemed to have hundreds of cats in there to keep the mice down. It was probably only about three or four, but whichever way you looked, there were cats.”
A rich history
Dick Barram owned the building after Bill Rooks and rented it out to several tenants.
It was a mower repair shop in the 1970s and an artist studio, pet shop and fruit shop in the 1980s even though The Big Pumpkin was next door.
History enthusiast Tom Plunkett recalls one Monday, a public holiday in the late 1980s, when he was at the Railway Hotel across the road and the shop caught fire.
Thanks to the quick-thinking actions of a few locals at the pub including Eddie Bowman, Paul Buchanan and Andrew Fisher, and the work of local firefighters, the building survived.
John Wyatt rented then bought the building from Dick Barram and had it for about 30 years, leasing the land from Council until the family had to get rid of the building from the site.
Still standing
The Show Society was only too happy to accept the offer from the Wyatts and, after the asbestos was ripped out, had it shifted as a Class 10 storage building.
“I said righto, let’s bring it here, we’ll utilise it and we’ll solve the problem of it being knocked down in a heap and keep a little more of the town history going,” said Mr Harrison.
“Who knows what the next generation of the show society committee may want to do with it? It’s here, and it’s here to stay.”
Mr Wyatt said it was a good outcome.
“It’s perfect that it’s come to the showgrounds – it’s very solid and it’d outlast most of the houses that are built now, I’d say,” he said.
“All the people who come through this gate will see it and I’m sure if I live long enough, I’ll see it all nice and prettied up.”
