Railway Hotel, Ravenswood, Heritage hotel in Ravenswood, Australia

The Railway Hotel is a two-story brick building on Barton Street built in the early 1900s with Federation-style architecture. The building features distinctive verandahs and interior spaces arranged with public rooms on the ground floor and bedrooms in the upper areas.

John Moran built the hotel in 1901 during the gold rush in North Queensland on a site where a wooden building had stood before. The new brick structure was constructed to serve the growing number of people arriving in the booming mining town.

The hotel served as a social gathering place for miners and travelers who met in its different public rooms. Today visitors can still experience how the rooms were arranged, showing how the community gathered together in this space.

The hotel is easily accessed from Barton Street since it sits centrally in the town. Visitors should remember this is an operating hotel, so it is important to be respectful of business hours and current guests.

The bricks for the Railway Hotel are said to have been made by an Italian brickmaker at John Moran's property at Connolly Creek. Moran's advertisements stressed the number of bricks used, suggesting brick construction was still a novelty in Ravenswood in 1901.