Heritage Treasures of the Toowoomba Region 2013 6791801HeritageTreasuresOfTheToowoombaRegion2013 | Page 20

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D5
D5 Former Ceramic Counter Front
In 1923 Heinrich Warneke installed this ceramic counter
front at his butcher shop on the corner of Ruthven and Little
Streets, now Art Gallery Park. Villeroy and Boch in Dresden,
Germany, produced the counter front in the 1880s. It features
pilasters with vase decorations topped by capitals with the
heads of pigs, sheep and cattle.
When subsequent owners moved the shop to opposite the
Town Hall, and later to 184 Hume Street, they were careful to
take the ceramics with them.
Today these rare panels grace the wall of Payne’s Butcher
Shop and are much admired as a reminder of Toowoomba’s
German heritage.
D6 Trades Hall and Associated Memorabilia
The Trades Hall at 19a Russell Street was built by local
workers who raised their own deposit to secure a loan during
the economic depression of the 1930s. The foundation stone
was laid on 21 March 1934 and contains the name of Jack
Duggan, a future MLA, Deputy Premier of Queensland and
Mayor of Toowoomba.
The Trades Hall is a heritage-listed building which holds
decades of local history in the form of an honour roll of
members who served in various wars, photographs of groups
and memories of dances held there in earlier times.
Photographs of the Eight Hour Committees from 1912 to
1920 are reminders of the efforts of workers in earlier times to
achieve better conditions for their fellow workers.
D7
D7 The Ray White Shed, Crow’s Nest
Many early rural businesses offered multiple services such
as real estate, auctioneering, insurance and equipment sales;
some grew into major enterprises. Ray White started such a
business in a tin shed in Crow’s Nest in 1902, and is now an
international company. The shed was later moved to a local
farm from where it was retrieved in 1994, being relocated (with
minor restoration) to the Carbethon Folk Museum in Crow’s
Nest. While not on its original site, the shed is an important
reminder of rural enterprise.
D8 Acland No 2 Colliery
Coal had been mined on the eastern Darling Downs from
1888 but major expansion occurred in the early 20th century to
supply Toowoomba Hospital, Toowoomba Gas Works, Oakey
Abattoir, a number of brick works and cheese factories and,
above all, the Queensland Railway’s steam engines as the rail
network expanded into local farming communities. Acland No 2
Colliery opened in 1929 and closed in November 1984.
This colliery is the only surviving historic coal mine on the
Downs. The underground mine, ancillary buildings and assorted
equipment represent the transition from early handpicking and
steam technology to mechanization. Its closure was forced by
the advent of open-cut mining, the coming of electricity and the
replacement of steam locomotives with diesel engines.
From 1985 local farmers Kath and John Greenhalgh
operated it as a working museum until its final closure
in 2000.
D8