GAME HUNTERS - 1902
The 14ft crocodile was shot by game hunter, ‘Mr White’ in 1902. Photographed by Innisfail magistrate, William Pettigrew Wilson.
THE Imperial Hotel at Innisfail sat across the road from the Johnstone River, a notorious waterway known for crocodiles.
The large timber two-storey hotel was the preferred accommodation for game hunters visiting north Queensland to snag themselves a giant trophy croc early last century. The Imperial Hotel was built for David William Henry in July 1899.
Henry had a short stay as host and died less than six months later, in January 1900 – not as a consequence of a croc attack, but by a less dramatic cause, related to “acute congestion of the kidneys”. He was just 45.
Henry’s widow took over as licensee of the Imperial after his death, until she moved to Townsville to open a pub by the same name in 1906.