Page 26 - CR

ituated nineteen odd miles down the A new Lowood Picture Company headed
SBrisbane Valley Branch Railway from by John Walters Snr., with his sons, John
Ipswich, the locality known as Cairnhill and Samuel Walters (Jack) and William James
“The Scrub” gained a new name with the Walters opened Walters Picture Hall in the
opening of the railway in June 1884. months following the fire at the Show Hall.

The ubiquitous Queensland scrublands The new Picture Hall was built “in an old
somewhat retarded the development of converted shop” within Lindemann’s Store
farming and agricultural communities. The Show Hall under construction. which consisted of a large double two-storied
Gradually the scrub was cleared and building, one half used as a picture-show
closer settlement from the 1860s, better and the other half as a cafe. The top storeys
roads and rail access, Lowood became of both these sections were used as living
a town worth visiting by theatre and quarters, one as a residential, and the other
vaudeville companies. (above the cafe) by the Walters family.

Travelling Picture and Variety show The theatre was a fully enclosed “picture
companies, Paget’s Pictures and The Sun hall”, and like the Show Hall it too saw use
Picture Company were touring the district Pictures at the Show Hall lasted little over for meetings, lectures, socials, balls and card
before 1910 and another showman, Mr. Dyer a year when an active wet season brought nights etc. Updated projection and sound
inaugurated pictures at the new Show Hall in a sudden end. Hoot Gibson was starring in were installed around 1930.
nearby Marburg in 1912. the (somewhat prophetic) main feature The
Flaming Frontier which was practically over Another devastating fire in town (thought to
Paget’s Perfect Pictures continued touring when “A blinding flash of lightning occurred, have malicious origins) ignited in the early
Southern and South-East Queensland and immediately the whole of the operating hours of December 8 1933, destroying the
throughout the 1920s and 30s. room was enveloped in flames. Picture Hall and other business premises in
Lowood’s worst fire.
All the wiring of the arc lamp was fused and
the arc went out. The operator’s assistant
jumped through into the hall, and the operator
got out of the flames with a burnt hand and his
hair and eyebrows singed. The room is apart
from the main hall, and is fireproof. Several
people saw a blue flame shoot through the
hall just as the fire occurred.”

Meanwhile in Lowood, Mr. B. Hope and his
wife provided music to accompany their silent
movie shows in the 1920s prior to the Lowood
Picture Company’s formation mid-1926.

The new company, its board of directors
consisting several prominent gentlemen
including John Walters Snr., requested
permission to construct a fire-proof operating
box at the northern end of the Lowood
and Tarampa Pastoral and Agricultural
Association’s Show Hall in town.

The plant owned by Mr. Hope was purchased
by the company, updated and installed Lindermann’s Building in 1912.
by November 1926.

26 2012 CINEM AREC ORD