Snowline Hotel History

The atmosphere of the Snowline Hotel comes from its heritage as one of the oldest Hotels in the district.

Harrietville was founded in the gold rush era with the first discovery of gold recorded in 1852. Population boomed and various shops and guest houses sprang up to service the miners who sought their fortune. Miners initially panned the Ovens river and later were employed in the various mines that sought to intersect the rich quartz reefs that brought much prosperity to the area. As technology advanced huge bucket dredges were brought in to extract gold out of the river beds in the 1900's with the huge Tronoh Dredge operating in Harrietville untill 1954. Further insight into the fascinating history of gold mining and the heritage of Harrietville can be found at the new Museum recently opened by the Harrietville Historical Society.

The Mystery Of the Snowline

Since purchasing the pub in October 2007 we have heard many colourful stories about the Snowline Hotel and its previous reincarnations. If you were to believe all of these then we have truly inherited a fascinating building. In summary...

• The current Hotel was previously a guest house, brothel, joss house &/or chinese laundry?
• There is a bottomless mine under the dance floor that someone dropped a crow bar down and never heard it land?
• There is a tunnel under the building that leads under the road to an old butchers shop that was previously used as an escape route for the chinese in case of attack by angry local miners?
• The Pub is haunted?

 

Closer to the truth...

It is a confirmed fact that the Snowline Hotel may have had many lives. The pub moved to the current building in 1957 after the grand old Hotel (shown above) burnt down. This pub was situated approximately 20m south of the current building on the Great Alpine Rd further up the hill toward Hotham where there is now a vacant block next to Autumn Leaf Cottages.

Whilst we had heard of the old pub burning down I had always assumed the current building was built after the fire. In fact, the owners at the time moved into the current building as a temporary residence for the business. As explained by the photo above which was given to us by previous publican at the Snowline, Phil Waters. This photo confirms that the current pub actually inhabits a much older building than the 1950's Snowline and explains the many rumours about it's previous use. It seems the owners at the time of the 1957 fire never got around to rebuilding and instead took over an existing structure that they renovated. You can see the front windows in this photo still exist in the front bar although almost every other part of the facade has changed. Many owners over the years had added to the property with the motel rooms being built as a seperate structure in the mid 80s.

Some more answers...

The photo above was given to the previous publican by one of the gentlemen in the photo in 1998. The back of the photo lists the people in the photo and also makes reference to the previous inhabitants of the current Snowline site, Howman's Butchery and a boarding house.

If anyone has any further information, stories or photos concerning the heritage of the Snowline please send us an email or drop in for a beer some time and don't let the truth get in the way of a good story as the Aussie tradition of tall tales is still alive at The Snowline.