Mackay Town Hall, Heritage-listed civic building in Mackay, Australia
Mackay Town Hall is a brick building at 63 Sydney Street, designed by architect Arthur Rigby and built in 1912 by Charles Porter using locally produced bricks. A central square tower rises above the facade, with circular glass-paned windows on its west, north and south sides where a clock was meant to go. The tower was designed to hold a clock that was never purchased.
The building was constructed in 1912 to replace an earlier timber town hall that had served the community before. It functioned as the administrative center for Mackay Municipal Council until 1974, remaining the city's governing hub for over 60 years.
A marble Honour Board was installed in the corridor in March 1917, listing local men who enlisted in World War I with photographs of those killed; the inscriptions remain incomplete. Photographs of John Mackay and past mayors hang in the entrance hallway, and furnishings at opening included cork carpet in the hallway and linoleum in the downstairs rooms.
The former town hall stands at 63 Sydney Street, on the block where the first timber hall was built in 1872. The 1949 and 1959 rear extensions were demolished after the council moved out in 1974, so the building visitors see is the 1912 core. The marble Honour Board hangs in the corridor, its inscriptions incomplete.
The prominent clock tower was designed to house a working timepiece, but the planned clock installation never took place. Instead, three sides of the tower display round glass panes that mark where the clock should have been, giving the tower an unfinished quality.
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