The Railway Hotel

Address: 154 Kendal Street, Cowra NSW 2794
Tel: 02 6342 2290

The opening hours are 11am – 12am (Midnight) Mon – Sat and 11am – 10pm Sunday.

The Railway Hotel also offers 4 basic rooms with shared bathroom facilities.

History

On the 19th January 1885, Mr John Wilson applied for a conditional publican's license for a house he proposed to erect on the corner of Kendal and Fitzroy streets, which was to contain eight rooms exclusive of all outbuildings and to be composed of weatherboard with lath and plaster linings. The application was granted and the building was completed by April of that year.

The hotel was purchased by Joseph Pereira in 1886. Pereira had come to Cowra from Murringo.

Early in the 1890s John and Kate McDowell purchased for the Pereiras. John McDowell had held the position of wardsman, and his wife that of matron of Cowra hospital, both having resigned from these positions to take up hotel keeping. On 15th February 1890 tragedy struck the McDowell family for they were in the hotel only three weeks when Kate took her infant son, and jumped to their deaths in the well at the rear of the hotel. She left a sad note to her husband and small daughter. John stayed on in the hotel until 1895 when he left Cowra.

The balcony and verandah of the hotel was demolished in 1955 by order of the municipal council.