Welcome Inn/East Toorale Hotel
The Welcome Inn at East Toorale was built by James Buckley and first granted a licence in 1889. Born in London, Buckley had come to Australia as a youth and spent his early years on the Bendigo goldfields before moving to Wilcannia where he kept a bakery. It was James Buckley who also built Tilpa’s Wee Watter Hotel and he was the first licensee. His son John, was briefly the publican of the Royal Hotel at Louth and later the Yantabulla Hotel.
The hotel ran in competition to the Galway Arms until it closed in 1896. Buckley put the hotel up for sale in 1898, with the newspaper advertisement describing his establishment as a substantial stone building with 10 rooms and outhouses, kitchen and storeroom at the back, a baker’s oven and a first-class cellar.
Renamed the “East Toorale Hotel,” the pub continued to operate until 1924, when its licence was taken by the Licencing Reduction Board.
Prince Alfred Hotel
Very little information survives about this establishment, which was opened by Christopher Dexter in February 1879. Dexter had already been in the district for some time as he was married in Bourke in 1873 and had previously been the publican of the Telegraph Hotel at Weelong.
Just eight-months after getting his hotel licence for the Prince Alfred, James McLaughlin applied to have it transferred to his name, but then withdrew the application.
In 1880, Dexter unsuccessfully applied for a wine licence in Louth for the following year and appears to have left the district not long after. His 40 acre lease at East Toorale being taken by Mrs Ward of the Galway Hotel.