Illewong already had a hotel; it quickly acquired another, adding a school, town hall, police station, semi-official telegraph and post office, cemetery, recreation ground, government savings bank and several stores, not to mention a town band and various friendly societies such as the Oddfellows. All this was laid out in a neat little grid of streets with names such as Coronga, Willandry, Trida and Balowra, taken not from the mines or the prominent men, but from the local grazing properties.
All this seemed to point to a permanent township, but Illewong lasted a scant fifteen years. By 1923, it was practically deserted, with only one family clinging to the village and six people, including three babies, left behind forever in the lonely cemetery. In those brief years, however, the folk of Illewong managed to pack a good deal into life, helped by merry times at the hotels. The local police constable, Lott Maloney, had a busy time of it.
The two hotels were the Bee Mountain and the Royal. The Bee Mountain was established in 1905 – but not without some problems. Mr Snape had applied for a conditional publicans’ licence in October 1904, testifying that he owned and occupied the land where he would build the pub. However, it turned out that he had ‘lived’ on the land for a single night, and that in a tent. Under the conditions of the licence, he was supposed to have erected a building with a minimal value of £10 within ten days of the granting of the licence. The judge was of the opinion that not only had he not met the licensing conditions, his title to the land had lapsed.
It was a battle, but Mr Snape had his hotel built by October 1905, when he was charged with a breach of the Liquor Act, allowing gambling to take place and serving alcohol during prohibited hours. He was found guilty and fined £2 / 6s with costs. Then in December of that year, an article entitled “Bacchanalian Bout at the Bee” appeared in the Cobar Herald. It was pay day and the miners wanted to party – and not just the miners, their women as well. This time, Mr Snape was the plaintiff. Two women were up on charges of being drunk and disorderly. The men were charged with indecent language, being drunk and disorderly, riotous behaviour and malicious damage of property. One of the men had found it amusing to balance glasses on the end of two sticks and let them smash to the ground. Snape said he given them drinks to placate them, and had then had to defend himself with a revolver. All parties were found guilty and heavily fined. It’s somehow not surprising William Snape gave up the licence the following year, when it was taken over by Jim Martin.
Martin left the Chesney Hotel in Wrightville to go to Illewong; but it is not known if he left his automobile, the first in Cobar, as well. Were the streets, which look so regular on the map, good enough for such a vehicle? No doubt the unprecedented rainstorm of 1907 impacted travel, when Martin feared the water pouring down the main street would overtop the verandah and flood his cellars, although it filled tanks and relived drought fears for a time.
Martin had some good ideas for attracting custom. On a warm night at the beginning of November in 1908, he held a torchlight footrace. In between hotly-contested heats (there were some good cash prizes), the town band played. No doubt the runners and the bandsmen needed refreshments in the breaks.
Investing in mining was almost a condition of living in Cobar. During his time as a publican in Illewong, Martin also invested in a new mining company: the Secret Copper-Mining Company. It was so secret no-one knows what became of it.
It doesn’t seem to have caused Martin any harm. After three years at Illewong, he spent seven years at the Mount Drysdale Hotel, leaving the Bee Mountain in the charge of his son, Michael Martin.
Michael Martin’s licence came to an end in 1914, as did the Bee Mountain Hotel. A disastrous fire swept through the premises, destroying the building and most of its contents. The hotel was not rebuilt and Michael Martin edged away from Cobar towards Nyngan, taking on the Bobadah pub.
Fire is a recurring theme…
The other hotel at Illewong was the Royal, built by Patrick Daley and run for several years by his brother William, before Mr Blamey took on the licence. On 30 March 1910, a fire broke out in the cellar. Its origins were a mystery, but its effects were not – the building and everything in it were totally destroyed. Mr Blamey was resilient – within days, he was applying for permission to run a temporary bar. Alas, there is no record of where this was situated. It appears that the hotel was not re-built. Henry Blamey next appeared in Wrightville, where he took over the Chesney, Jim Martin’s old pub. Sometimes it seems all the publicans everywhere around Cobar had a roster and just rotated the licences between themselves!
After WWI, the Martin family continued in the hotel trade in Nyngan, where Jim died and was buried in 1933. Patrick Daley took up the licence of the Terminus Hotel in Cobar, providing a home and employment for himself and his family. He died in 1914 while in Sydney seeking medical treatment. His widow, Mary Josephine Daley, remarried, but she kept the same name because her second husband was Patrick’s brother, William.