Barmera Bakery and First Barmera Shop

When Barmera was just a town-to-be, it’s first shop was a weatherboard building on Lot 55 near the corner of Laffer Street and Barwell Avenue. It was opened by William Struthers, a returned soldier on December 1919. Struthers did well in the booming construction months and erected a second shop adjoining the first and added a post office cube. It was known as ‘The Lake Bonney Store’.

The Army and Navy Stores Ltd. purchased the store in 1922. The building still stands on the site today behind the corner newsagency building with frontage to Laffer Street. Until the late 1970’s the verandah was still a board footpath.

The new Barmera Bakery opened to the Barmera community on Friday August 23, 1935. The proprietor Mr. W. O. Garrard, had been a popular resident of Barmera since its inception, and took pride in the share he had in its development. With the Survey Department on Lake Bonney in 1919 “before Barmera was thought of”, Mr. Garrard helped survey the town site, and then decided to make his home there. He opened Barmera Bakery in partnership with Messrs. Bert Whitmore and Andy Collins at the end of 1921, on the eastern side of Barwell Avenue. He eventually bought the other two gentlemen out, Mr Whitmore going into the butchering business.

By the end of the first year the business had been extended to take in various other lines besides bread, and later further expanded to include practically everything in groceries, hardware and sporting goods. From its humble beginnings, developing first on the eastern side of the avenue , the business steadily grew eventually taking over the old Army and Navy premises on the other side of the avenue when the Army and Navy store closed in 1924. A new building was added to the Army and Navy shop and the new premises, very modern in every respect, occupied a commanding corner position in the town. It was built by Messrs. R. D.Rumbold and Son, with Mr. E. J. House as mason, both of Barmera.

The spacious interior was later further renovated to take in Mr Najar’s shop. Eventually the new building ran right through to the old reconstructed Army and Navy Stores and was equipped to give good service with jarra floor, show cases, refrigerator and a roomy cellar beneath. The business employed fourteen staff when it reopened in the new premises in 1935. Mr Garrard continued to operate the business until his death in 1957.

Most of the early business premises in Barmera were flimsy wood and iron structures, sometimes white-washed hessian, and it was only when Ron Gambling began building brick and concrete shops in the 1930’s that Barwell Avenue took on a civilized appearance.

Barmera Bakery during the 1936 SA Centenary celebrations. This shop is now the news agency

A early photo of the Barmera Bakery, showing Barmera’s first shop to the right. Photograph probably taken mid 1920’s