History - 1890's mail coach route

History Notes

This and next week are busy times for historical society members and those who may wish to join and those who can help us raise some money.  Note the advertisement re the approaching street stall next week.  Unfortunately, the Annual Meeting will be over by the time you read this, but we are always hoping for new members – historians and stall holders.

This week I have been asked a ‘curly’ question by a Bingara district resident.  I wonder how many travelers heading to Bingara along the Fossickers Way would even realise they were following the route of the Mail Coaches in the late 1890’s.  As one descends the Devil’s Elbow spare a thought for those who were tipped out of their carriage on the descent – most survived including one of my great aunts – but one coach driver was killed when his horses bolted down the hill tipping the coach over on the way down.

When the Hall’s Creek valley opens out, and the traveler notices another turn to Upper/Top Bingara, there is an old house on the left.  This was the Dinoga Post Office and a Mail Coach horse-change in the 1890’s and home to Reuben and Elsie Gill and their family.  The enquirer was asking for information about the old house and its history.

At first, I just said it was a coach stop but then remembered the Bingara books and pamphlets collection in the cupboard. The Gill family was written up in the Bingara Historical News Volume 1, Issue 7, August 1995, and again in Volume 4 number 42, but the time to find these references could easily have been shortened with an index to all issues.

Returning to the Dinoga building itself, the article in 1995 says it was a Wine saloon, coach stop and Post office until the end of March 1961. Reuben Gill served in the first World War and returned to Dinoga to live the rest of his life there.

Dinoga was quite a stopping place in the early days as well as later in its history – cricket was played there in the 1940s and there is a record of a cricket team from Upper Horton travelling to Dinoga around that time.  The team travelled on the back of a truck seated on two benches, played their match, and returned home in the truck after refreshments – not something that would be legal these days.