
As we saw in the South Brisbane Post Office building, the design allowed for post office business to be conducted on the ground floor, whilst the postmaster and his family lived upstairs. This post office was one of the few masonry post office buildings - many others of the period were constructed from timber. By the time the Fortitude Valley Post Office was built, the Valley was a thriving commercial area centred on the Brunswick St and Wickham St intersection, just north of the main Brisbane township. There was some disappointment that the post office was to be situated right down Ann St at Ballow St, as many of the Valley's merchants wanted it to be closer to them. In 1929, it was noted that this post office was the second-highest distributor of pension payments in the country.

As with its South Brisbane counterpart, the building is no longer a post office. It has been refitted as a hotel/nightclub called GPO. Although the original mansard roof was removed around the time of WWII, the building retains its old-world charm. It is pictured above, showing the Ballow St side of the building.
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I love that Brisbane still has these old buildings dotted around the place.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad I found your blog. I love learning the history of my home city :)
Jasmine
Thanks Jasmine!
ReplyDeleteI have to say that, with so many beautiful buildings in Fortitude Valley with very colourful histories, I greatly look forward to when you do a story on them, and this one about the Valley GPO is a great one!
ReplyDeleteCould I suggest doing one on the old Waltons Department Store? You've done the nicely restored McWhirters and TC Bierne buildings, which were very interesting articles, so maybe a Waltons one, as they were the third big valley department store.