Let's take one more walk, a short one this time

We'll walk along Ellen Street, with a side view into Alexander Street.  **

Many years ago, Ellen Street looked like this....

Railway tracks went straight down the middle ending at the Railway Station....
the view you see is the shopping and hotels side of the street, the Railway Station is on the wharf side of the street. 

and there was no platform, so people stepped down into the street off the train.

In the 50s, trains ran at night too, (possibly even in the 60s) leaving Adelaide in daylight and arriving in Port Pirie quite late at night. We arrived on a train named The Bluebird in 1958 at about 9-10pm. I remember climbing down a short set of steps to the road, then walking across to the footpath.
Dad had accepted a job offer from the Port Pirie branch of the South Australian Gas Company and was to start work the next day. (SAGASCO, dark green shirts, red logo stitching)
So here we were in Port Pirie, five of us, late at night, with nowhere to stay. A house had not yet been made available.

Right on the footpath where we stepped off the train was the small shop front of the Gas Company, and someone must have been there to greet us, as we were ushered inside and led up a flight of stairs to the storeroom, I think, my memory is a little hazy here, with another room beyond it. This is where we were to stay until a house was available.
SAGASCO is no longer there, but the building is.....

it is now Image Hairdressing and those windows upstairs are where we looked out at the street below. I don't remember which window, but I do remember going up and down the stairs and walking through the shop to get to the street, or out the back to the toilet. We were asked not to play in the shop and being only young, we did as we were told, but sometimes sat on the stairs watching customers while waiting for Dad to get home from work.

I think we lived there for about three weeks, then a house was available and we moved to the Risdon Park area and I was enrolled in the Risdon Park primary school. My most clear memory of that school is a girl who swung high on the swings and fell off, breaking her arm. My clearest memories of the house are Mum's veggie patch which took up half the backyard, and we three kids all having chicken pox at the same time.

Let's get back to Ellen Street.

the old Railway Station has been cleaned up, prettied up, repaired, and is now a Rail Museum.  I'd planned on going in for a look-see, but it wasn't open when I walked past and after walking the beach-school loop, I was pretty tuckered out. The next day of course, I'd had enough and came home instead.

Next to the Railway Station/Museum is the Port Pirie Post Office. I remember it being green and I could be wrong, but it certainly looks a lot nicer now.

then comes the old Courthouse, it's quite small, which explains why they built a much larger one down by the Police Station. I'm glad they kept this though and renovated it, history should be preserved as much as possible in my opinion. I'm not sure what the building is used for now.

Next in line.......

the National Trust Museum. There is a building in between  the Courthouse and the Museum, there's a grey roofline in the previous photo, but I don't remember what it is and why didn't I take a photo??

All of these buildings are on the wharf side of Ellen Street, with the shops being on the other side.
The sandstone building to the right of the photo above is.....

the old Public Library, where I spent so many happy hours reading, reading, reading, mostly in the winter when it was too cold to be at the beach in the water. I don't think it is used as a library anymore, there is a new, big, modern library building at the end of Ellen Street, right behind the Visitor's Centre, between it and the railway station that was built across from the high school.

Along the centre of Ellen Street, where the railway tracks used to run is a wide median strip with.....

flowers,

flags,
and the best of all.....

old train wheels embedded in the soil, a reminder of Port Pirie's rail heritage.
I love these, there are three sets along this stretch of the median strip.

Finally, here's a look at the Hotel/Motel I stayed at.....

quite a big place, on the corner of Ellen Street and David Street.

a closer look, so you can see the Christmas decorations.

I've just realised we didn't do that little **side walk into Alexander Street, we'll go there next week.