barossa history
From Millstones to Milestones - Murray St, Nuriootpa
words by
luke rothe
The Community Store celebrates 80 years of operation in 2024, but the site of its first store, purchased in 1944, goes back to settlement days. A photo from around 1870 shows the site on Murray Street, Nuriootpa, looking north from the Gawler Street intersection.
The imposing four storey stone and brick building with a chimney, was a steam powered flour mill built around 1853 for James Tobitt, who was declared insolvent by 1858. The mill had several owners until a fire consumed the building in the early hours of April 8, 1879, causing the walls to collapse.
On the right of the muddy main street stands a horse and sulky in front of the Angas Park Hotel, built around 1855.
To the left is a corner store on Lot 3, which was transferred to William Strother in 1865. A German advert from 1874 shows that Strother established the ‘Angas Park Store’ in 1853, and was selling ‘manufactured, colonial & iron goods.’ He also purchased ‘wheat & other farm products at the highest market price’.
Strother was very community minded. In 1864 he joined the campaign to get a telegraph line through Nuriootpa. The telegraph opened in 1866, and the photo shows a wooden pole and telegraph wires in front of his store.
After about 40 years in business William Strother eventually left the district in 1899, and his corner store location expanded to the north, with successive storekeepers.
Kretchmer Brothers were trading as storekeepers from the mid-1910s, selling out to Mr GN Dallwitz in June 1924.
Mr Dallwitz was reported as ‘having a big love for attractive architecture…..he intends pulling out the present shop front and modernising the whole premises’. His plans came to fruition and by the end of 1924 the updated premises was trading as ‘Dallwitz Limited – The Universal Providers’.
In April 1929, The Leader reported Dallwitz’s store had been purchased by HL Sheard of Gawler. Sheard’s Service Stores traded successfully, expanding with an Angaston branch store in 1932.
In March 1944 Sheard’s stores were bought by the community, operating as a ‘co-operative’ with members sharing in the profits of the business; while the building still retained its 1924 façade built for Dallwitz.
The Nuriootpa shop site has seen many upgrades under Co-op Store ownership.
In 1965 the co-operative became a franchisee for ‘Foodland’ and transformed its old grocery department into a modern self-service supermarket. A bright yellow façade crowned with a huge boomerang-shaped ‘Foodland’ sign completed the modernisation, with a small Co-op hardware shop on the right.
On the left is Reusch’s pharmacy, on the site of Strother’s corner store. After extensive remodelling Arthur Reusch opened in 1928. The building remained as a pharmacy until 1998 when it relocated, together with Foodland, to the newly built Regional Shopping Centre.
The Co-op Store has grown immensely, but its original shop site bought in 1944, where the flour mill once stood, is still part of its operations. Barossa Co-op is Australia’s largest and longest standing retail co-operative.
