Telephone Exchange, McCrae Street, Dandenong, undated.

This is after the building was extended from the original wooden structure to the present brick one. You can see the Dandenong Hub in the edge of the right side. This section of McCrae street is now a pedestrian mall. The photo would have been taken from in front of the former Myer building.

Looking from the other side of Walker street.

Between 1950-60. This view shows the original building before being extended into the present brick one, looking up McCrae street, with Walker running across the bottom. Behnd the Telephone Exchange is the rear of Cheeney, now occupied by the Dandenong Hub.

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Dandenong Primary (state) School, 174-182 Foster Street, Dandenong.

Interestingly this undated photo includes the fence missing in most images, which leaves us curious of the date range for the quaint wooden fence.

The first Dandenong state school was built at the corner of Robinson and Foster Streets and officially opened its doors on 4 May 1874. Not long after the Railway was built to Dandenong, safety became an issue with the schools proximity to the station, so it moved to its present site on Foster Street in 1881 and welcomed about 200 students.

The Gothic-inspired building took nine months to construct and at the time its ornate style was considered to add significantly to the township’s architecture. It had three rooms – one for boys, one for girls and a gallery – and modern fittings for the day including a porch, a hat rack and ventilation.

But not everyone was pleased with the new school. Joseph Harris, the St Kilda MP at the time, said that although the building was pleasing, he felt the expenditure on school buildings in the colony was too lavish. He said that if more unpretentious buildings were erected, surplus finance could be used to open schools in more sparsely-populated districts.

A classroom, head teacher’s office and lavatory were added in 1901 and another four classrooms were completed in 1909. Further classrooms were added in the 1940s and 1950s to cope with expanding enrollments, which topped 760 pupils in 1960. The school today has over 300 students from families representing 45 different nationalities.

Image courtesy of D.D.H.S.
http://www.ddhs.com.au/

 — at Dandenong Primary School.


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Springvale Hotel, Princes Highway, Springvale, undated.

The name Springvale arose from a permanent water source for stock and travellers between Melbourne and Dandenong that was in the vicinity of the intersection of Dandenong and Centre/Police Roads. It was near the springs in the 1850s that the Spring Vale hotel was built alongside the newly surveyed route between Oakleigh and Dandenong. 

The hotel's proprietor chose that name because of the natural springs and his association with a place near the Bog of Allen in his native Ireland. It was expected that a village would spring up around the hotel but this did not eventuate until the primary school was opened at the top of the hill in 1867, and even then it never grew to its full potential at this location.

In 1886, land was subdivided and sold alongside a stopping place where Spring Vale Road and the Gippsland railway line (opened 1879) intersected. This land was nearly two kilometres south of the hotel and school on Princes Highway and it was here that the main Springvale township developed.

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Lonsdale Street, Dandenong, 1913

Looking towards the Town Hall (behind the tree) from just after Clow street. The photo is titled "Market Day - 26/8/13". Look at the size of that crowd. At this time the market was still located on Lonsdale street, from the Clow street intersection, to about where the tree is. The stock was penned in an open section on the corner of Lonsdale and Clow. Tuesday was Market Day.

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Bridge, Lonsdale Street, Dandenong, early 1930s

Looking across the bridge over the Dandenong Creek towards the intersection of Foster Street in the early 1930's. the Peace Memorial Bridge was opened for traffic on the 24th August 1919. The bridge commemorates the declaration of peace in 1919 and is also dedicated to those who gave their lives to save 
civilisation.

The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War One. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of World War One were dealt with in separate treaties. Although the armistice signed on 11 November 1918, ended the actual fighting, it took six months of negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude the peace treaty.

Once described as ‘one of the best bridges in Victoria. With the park facing wall removed, the bridge still carries a portion of the Princes Highway over the Dandenong Creek on the railway side.
Over the years ‘the rapids of Dandenong’, so described once by the poet Adam Lindsay Gordon, have swept away more than one bridge in the area. The first bridge over Dandenong Creek was constructed in 1840. A flood swept this away ten years later and it was replaced.

The stone bridge, built in 1866, probably by Robert Huckson, lasted 52 years. Part of it was granite, quarried locally from the vicinity of Wedge and Power Streets. The integrity was undermined by repeated floods, rendering the bridge unsafe for use. Some of the stones were scattered along the creek to build it up after the erosion damage that had been caused by previous flooding.

When the Highway was duplicated, land taken from the Dandenong Park side of the Highway, as it continues from Foster Street, past the creek towards Webster Street, was used for the extra lanes. When duplicating the Dandenong Creek Bridge, the park facing wall of the Peace Memorial Bridge was removed, as the extra bridge/carriageway was added on the Park side creating the present bridge.

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Southern Aurora Hotel, January, 1978.

The fire raged for some time before the crews managed to contain it, thankfully the damage wasn't too bad, besides the pool hall out front, and the hotel was still operational. Mind the fright the tenants at the time has. This photo is taken from the Train Station, looking towards the back of the Hotel.

The Southern Aurora continues operation until around 1991. In May 1993, the Hotel was demolished as stage 1 of works to redesign the station, with the new Train Station building being opened in 1995. The site if the Hotel was turned into a carpark, which still remains presently. At some point during the late 1990s, the pedestrian subway was filled in.

Do you remember the fire?

It is possible it was the Dandenong House fire, which was located in front of the Hotel facing Foster Street, it was gutted by fire in 1977/78.

Photos courtesy of the Geoff Cargeeg Collection
https://www.flickr.com/photos/gcargeeg/

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Lonsdale Street, Dandenong, 1910-2016

Looking from Foster street towards the town hall, it's not surprising to see a lot of changes have happened over the 106 years between these photos, but some still remain.

The Bridge Hotel, with it's small upstairs balcony, still remains, although drastically modified, now operating as the Jim Dandy. The town hall facade also still remains, although the clock wasn't installed until 1934.

It is interesting to note that even with all the redesigning of Lonsdale street over the decades, the basic dimensions of the service road next to the shops remains similar.

This image is courtesy of: PAST 2 PRESENT
https://www.flickr.com/people/past2present/

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