Townsville Post Office (former)

The former Townsville Post Office is now a brewery and bar. The first post office in town had been a temporary structure in Wickham Street. A new post office was built on this site in 1878, but soon proved to be inadequate. Colonial Architect J J Clark produced plans for a major public building which was constructed in stages from 1886 until 1889. The first stage comprised a telegraph office while postal services were dispatched from the old building. Then the old post office was demolished to make way for the new building. Both post and telegraph offices were built by local contractor Denis Kelleher at a total cost of 14,172 pounds. The clock tower was constructed under a separate contract in 1889 by Henry L Davis and Co. The new post office opened on 2 December 1889. The new building was a two-storey brick and concrete Italianate style with a 2m wide balcony. During WWII, the post office housed classes in Morse code for the many air crew reservists in town. The post office was transferred from the Australian Government to the commercial entity, the Australian Postal Commission in 1985. It was sold in 2001 to the Townsville Brewing Company.