Museum of the Riverina
P.O. Box 20 Wagga Wagga NSW, 2650
Phone 0269 252 934 Fax 0269 255 720
E-mail museum@wagga.nsw.gov.au
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Above is a collection of the early model refrigerators. These were termed Ice Boxes.
In the centre is the most famous, the Australian Coolgardi Safe. Originating in Coolgardi, Western Australia, it became a household necessity. It's design was very simple, usually made of wood, an ice block would sit in the tin on the top, and the cool water would drip down the hessian, into the drip tray at the bottom. In this way the temperature inside the safe was much lower than the temperature in the kitchen.
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Above is an ice box which was made from a gramophone box.
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Above you can see the beginings of the modern fridge. It is a two door fridge, with the top section being for a solid block of ice. The bottom sections are obviously for the food and drink. The fridge looks very similar to our old fridges, but of course there is no electricity.
A very interesting observation is that the badge in the middle of the door states the ice box as "Esky".
As another note, people with these type of fridges or ice boxes had the ice delivered by an "Ice Man", who usually had a horse and cart, and carried the ice block to your kitchen on his shoulder, usually with only a hessian bag for padding. Ice Men were still delivering ice blocks to Melbourne suburbs in the late 1950's.
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Leyland Truck 1928
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Above you can see inside the cabin of the truck, showing a brake lever, a gear stick, and the two foot pedals. Note the wooden doors and wooden floor.
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A slab hut has been erected to house some early century post office equipment. Outside the post office are two styles of telephone boxes that were used in the 1950's. Next to these is a range of petrol pumps, where the petrol was in a bowl at the top of these cylinders, the customer or attendant would use a hose into the car's fuel tank, and then pump a lever which pumped the petrol into the car. Hence the term Petrol Pumps.
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Inside the Post office is a range of post office equipment, such as weights, mail bags, and a range of telephones and switchboards.
Above is a Magneto Switchboard, and an Ericson Wall Telephone 1906.
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