Broken Hill Pub Closes After 130 Years, Signifying Cultural Loss

For more than 60 years, Harry Plane has had a designated seat at his favourite local pub.

The Junction Hotel in the outback mining city of Broken Hill has served as a gathering place for miners, footy players, and railway workers for more than 130 years.

As he sips on a beer, Mr Plane reminisces about the good old days of the pub.

"We used to have the mine boys in here every night, afternoon shift, or day shift," Mr Plane said.

"[It] used to be pretty wild."

Opened in 1891, the pub called last drinks earlier this month for the final time.

The hotel's new owners, a local business syndicate, are unlikely to reopen it as a pub.

Mr Plane said he would miss the camaraderie with fellow patrons the most.

"[It is] a very sad day," he said.

"I reckon there will be a few tears."

In the mining city's heyday in the late 1800s and early 1900s, when its population peaked at more than 35,000, it boasted more than 70 pubs.

The city's pubs have been declining along with its population, with the Junction Hotel the latest casualty.

Since 2000-2001, the population in Broken Hill and far west NSW has declined by 18 per cent, to about 17,500 people.

The decline is driven in part by the modernisation of mining operations, which require fewer workers.

Diversify or die

Dean Trengove is the Australian Hotels Association state council delegate and owns his own pub in the city.

His venue includes poker machines, a restaurant and a drive-through bottle-o.

Mr Trengove said he understood times were tough for the city's pubs due to evolving drinking habits, cost-of-living pressures and strict compliance.

"There's a lot of things added into the price of a product that we're selling in pubs."

Mr Trengove said if pubs were to survive, they needed to consider diversifying their offerings.

"In Broken Hill, it's survival of the fittest and it's about the facilities that you offer and a lot of times it's how you run your business," he said.

"You've got to try and offer as many services as you can to maintain and give people a reason to come to the pub."

Gone with the pokies

Grant Williams will likely hold the title of the last publican of the Junction Hotel.

He was the pub's manager when it was previously sold in 2022 to a Sydney investor, who moved the hotel's nine poker machines to a different city.

It was this decision that Mr Williams believes spelled the end of the pub.

"Once the pokies went, we didn't make any money," Mr Williams said.

"[The hotel] was losing a lot of money every week because I lost 50 regulars because they like to play the pokies."

Across Broken Hill and Wentworth, there are 469 poker machines in clubs and 51 in hotels, which collectively earned more than $11 million from December to March, according to Liquor & Gaming NSW data.

Loss of culture

Pubs are woven into the rich social history of this remote mining city in far west New South Wales.

Emily McInerney, who has published a book on the history, said the city was well-known for having a pub on every corner.

She said the names of pubs were closely tied to the region's mining history, such as the Silver King, the Bonanza and the Exchange, and they became meeting places for trade unions, social clubs and political rallies.

Ms McInerney said even now, pubs were more than just a place to go and drink.

"Even if people aren't using it as a pub, it's still a function centre," she said.

"People have gotten married there, had 21sts and 30ths and 40ths and 50ths there."

The Junction now joins a long list of the city's other iconic hotels that have shut their doors, including the South Australian, the Old Royal, the Excelsior and the Southern Cross.

Some establishments closed during the COVID-19 pandemic and never reopened, while others have been unable to weather the changing tides.

"It is a loss of culture, " Ms McInerney said.

Mr Plane, however, will find a new watering hole.

"All the mates will go somewhere else, so I'll probably go with them," he said.

"I'll find somewhere to drink."

At another local hotel, not too far from the Junction, Mr Plane and his friends have named a part of the bar 'the Junction refugees'.