Old Invercargill

0

In this illustrated history of , John Hall-Jones considers himself extremely fortunate to have inherited his father’s extensive collection of photographs of early Invercargill. But buildings need people in them to bring them to life and here again he has been fortunate to have inherited his father’s records of the early s of the town by the pioneers of Invercargill.

Here is Bishop Harper’s account of a most disturbing night in the first hotel in Invercargill and Sherwood Roberts’ delightful story of the house warming parties at Invercargill’s first two hotels. Later comes the tale of a famous character in the early town, the ‘Black Doctor’, who was neither black nor a doctor. Then there are the stories of how the fire brigade suffered the embarrassment of burning its own fire station to the ground; the collection of over 1,000 ‘Birds, Beasts, Insects ’, in Andrew McKenzie’s pie shop, which was the very beginnings of the Southland Museum; Todd’s aucti...