Morawa Scene: Article 01—The 'right' side of town
I recently decided I would contribute the occasional article, for lack of a better word, to the Morawa Scene.
For those who have no idea what the Morawa Scene is, it is the local ‘newspaper’ of the town of Morawa.
Each contribution to the Morawa Scene is one page.
I have decided I will put each such article on my Web site about a week or so after they are published in the Morawa Scene.
Following is my first submission.
For those that like to see the actual page layout version you can click the page image, otherwise the exact same content is provided below.
For whatever reason I have decided to try and put together some stories and notes that I remember from my days in Morawa and from events that my father, Sydney (Syd) Lodge told me about before I was around to experience them myself.
I am Barry Lodge. My mother was Myrtle Lodge (nee Powell) and my dad, as mentioned, was Syd Lodge.
Dates of when things took place are as close as I can work them out and, in some cases, may not be spot on. These dates will likely not be more than a few years out either way.
My dad had two older brothers. Maurice and Laurie. The three brothers, along with their father Percival (Percy) Harry Lodge, more commonly referred to as Yorky, owned and ran the store P. H. Lodge & Sons which started from a small, corrugated iron store that Percy Harry purchased from Mr. Moore around 1919* as best I can work out.
As was often made very clear to me by my dad, P. H. Lodge and Sons was on the ‘right’ side of town. The ‘right’ side of town being the side of town that was planned to be the main side of town. In fact, in 1919, it was the only side of town; and became Solomon Terrace.
However, due to a number of circumstances that I won’t go into here but involving the salt lakes, according to my dad the main road from Wubin to Mullewa ended up being put through on the ‘wrong’ side of town—i.e., on the west side of the railway line.
As an outcome of this, as time went by, what was planned to be the main street of Morawa ended up becoming a kind of secondary main street and Winfield Street became the primary main street—if you will permit me to use such confusing terminology.
I am told that at the time this move seriously annoyed the private company that had by then put their railway station building on the ‘right’ side of town, the person who built the hotel as that too was also on the ‘right’ side of town, the local butcher, and, obviously, Yorky Lodge who had his general store on the ‘right’ side of town—which, when he bought the store, was the ONLY side of town. I understand that, at the time, the Post Office was also located on the ‘right’ side of town—i.e., on Solomon Terrance.
I have included a composite of the town map of Morawa dated 9th January 1915. On it, to the best of my knowledge, I have indicated the location of the Post Office**, Yorky Lodge’s house**, P. H. Lodge & Sons general store, the hotel**, the butcher**, and a boarding house** my dad used to talk about.
As you can see from this town plan the school was going to be built on the corner of Valentine Street and what is now Stokes Road.
In the composite map I have included the caption that “All applications for Land must be made to the Geraldton District Office”. Hence, this was before the Morawa townsite came within the purview of the Perenjori Road Board.
This map was stamped CANCELLED as of the 9th of February, 1923.
I hope these jottings were of some interest to a few people.
* Records I can find have different dates as to when this purchase likely took place including 1912 and 1923.
**None of which were there when Percy Lodge bought the general store.
My second article, published on the 9th Nov 2023, is here.
