Pioneer Brigde hotel

location

on Ovens River

opposite Everton

Beginnings

The hotel was established by John Moon.

What was Pioneer Bridge hotel like in the late 1870s

(OMA15/3/79) Photograph

Map

Links to the KellyGang

On the night of 27/10/1878, at about 2am four horsemen were seen riding through Oxley, near the Oxley square, going in the direction of the Pioneer Bridge. They had two pack-horses with them; they were going pretty quickly. Where they the KellyGang on their way east after leaving the Greta area after the Mansfield Murders. Det Ward thought so. He investigated further.

On the following morning the witness examined the foot-prints, and he believed them to be police horses' foot-prints from the marks of the shoes. Det Ward then proceeded to the Pioneer Bridge Hotel, kept by Mr Moon. He was absent in Melbourne at the races at the time, but Det Ward was there informed by a young man that, on the morning of the 27th, or the morning of the 28th, I think, that one man called there and purchased a bottle of brandy.

The other men stood with their horses near the Pioneer Bridge, and crossed over the bridge, going in the direction of Everton. From other enquiries Det Ward made, he found that the same four men called at Everton, and purchased several boxes of sardines, and some horse-feed, and crossed under the railway in the Blind Bridge, between Everton and Beechworth, going in the direction of Sebastopol that would be. (RC3148)