Central Hotel, Port Pirie, SA

In what would become the heart of the downtown area, the 21 room Central Hotel was built in a record breaking six weeks in time to open for Christmas 1880. Apparently, more than 80 men worked on the imposing structure in a race against time. If they had not completed by Christmas, the company would have been charged a penalty of ten pounds a day until the hotel was completed. The best-known publicans of the Central have been Howard and Joyce West, who kept the tradition of the Central being a family pub, for 25 years. At one stage of the pub’s popularity, it was claimed to be selling more beer than any other pub in South Australia, with the exception of Adelaide Metropolitan Hotel in Adelaide. The first licensee was C. Trapmann in 1881.