Tarcoon was a village along the Bogan River which rose and fell with the changing modes of transport. Initially a key stopover for the coach lines which followed the Bogan River down, the village was also critically located on the rail-spur which later crossed from Byrock to Brewarrina, connecting to the Bourke – Sydney line.
The Cobb and Co track is remembered in The History of Bourke:
“Until the railway came to Bourke, Cobb and Co.’s. Coaches followed the Bogan from Nyngan to Bourke, via Canonbar, Nidgery, Gongolgon, Tarcoon and Pink Hills.
Cobb & Co. was a fantastic organisation with their huge coaches, leather sprung, box seat with boot underneath, fact to face seats inside, at the back another boot to carry mails and luggage. This boot was cornered with a strong canvas. Cover with large straps from the top passing through large buckles attached to the underneath of the boot. The top of the coach had an iron rail right round and here also luggage and mail was carried. Not unusually a passenger made himself comfortable on the top when seats were unavailable. Three large lamps, one on back, side and one on top with an extra large candle inside was the only light the driver had and much of his travelling was done by night.
Cobb & Co. used the best type of horses to drag their coaches and also the best type of drivers to handle them. They were well fed and changed every 18 or 20 miles. At Gongolgon there was a mail change and I remember quite well how the horses would rear and go off at a gallop when put in fresh and as soon as the driver would truck the reins and the groom would let go the heads of the leaders. My, how those drivers would revel behind a team of fresh horses as they raced up the street in Gongolgon from the Royal Hotel down past the Commercial Hotel and out along the Bourke road and for Tarcoon for another change of horses.”
By the 1890s the railway line had made its way across the red Mulga lands, to its crossing at the Bogan River and its intersection with Tarcoon. The first record of a licensed premises there is 1893, although one almost certainly existed prior to this.
The licence was transferred from Joseph Maxwell to James Albert Paul who appears to have managed the venue for about 10 years, including its likely name change to the ‘Railway Hotel’ in around 1900.
In May 1933 the licence was removed, as indicated in the notice from 12 May 1933:
LIQUOR (AMENDMENT) ACT, 1919—SECTION 29.
Notice of Compensation Payable*
WHEREAS it has been determined by the Licenses Reduction Board that the licensed publican’s premises mentioned in the Schedule hereunder shall be deprived of a license: Notice is hereby given that the compensation awarded by the said Board to the owner, lessee, sub-lessee, and licensee, or any or either of them, is as shown in such Schedule.
Dated at Sydney, this tenth day of May, 1933.
P. H. ELDRIDGE,
Secretary to the said Board.
Schedule.
Railway Hotel, Tarcoon.
To The Minister for Lands, Department of Lands, Sydney, as Owner—£480; and to Albert Bernard Collen, of Railway Hotel, Tarcoon, as Licensee—£110. Total, £590.