Albury is preparing to celebrate one of the most important turning points in the city’s history.
This Saturday marks the 75th anniversary of the announcement that Albury would be declared a city – a momentous occasion that the Mayor of the day, Cleaver Bunton, described as ‘a coming of age’.
The community learned of the news in 1946 when the local MP, Jack Hurley, announced that Albury would be in a group of eight large country towns that would get city status.
Mayor Bunton announced that birthday celebrations would be held at Easter, 1947, and the Governor of NSW, Lieutenant General John Northcott, accepted the Council’s invitation to visit Albury to read the proclamation on 10 April from the balcony of the Town Hall (now MAMA).
The date provided Albury with two ‘birthdays’, Declaration Day, 18 December 1946, and Proclamation Day, 10 April 1947.
The residents of the newly-declared city celebrated Declaration Day with a Christmas shopping rush which, according to the Border Morning Mail, ‘cloaked the streets with a mantle of thriving industry’.
Albury City Council CEO, Frank Zaknich said the anniversary was an occasion for the community to celebrate everything that’s great about living, working, and investing in Albury.
“The seeds of our modern, vibrant community were sown many years before Proclamation Day but the declaration of our town as a city was a critical milestone that paved the way for us to eventually become one of the largest economies in regional Australia, offering a lifestyle on the banks of the Murray that makes our city a very special place,” he said.
“This is also a great opportunity to look ahead, as well as back into history, as we all work together to reach Albury’s unlimited potential for the future.”
Council and the Albury and District Historical Society are now planning a series of celebrations to be held in April 2022.
As part of the celebrations, the society has teamed up with the Albury LibraryMuseum to launch a public memory hunt that will create a digital time capsule.
Community members are invited to contribute to a memory bank that tells what kind of place Albury has been to live in over the years.
