Title
1910s Australia Boulder City Racecourse Grandstand Crowd Goldfields WA Postcard
Front
A colour-tinted photographic view of the racecourse at Boulder City, on the Western Australian goldfields near Kalgoorlie, taken from an elevated position looking along the course towards the grandstands on a race day.
Printed in red across the upper left of the sky is the caption:
“Racecourse, Boulder City”
The right half of the image is filled by a range of timber grandstands stepping away from the viewer. The largest, at the right, is a substantial structure with a broad hipped roof of green-grey iron, decorative timber gable infill, and a deep open front carried on tall slender posts, its tiers packed solid with spectators. Adjoining it to the left are two smaller stands of similar construction with gabled roofs and open sides, also crowded. Below the stands runs a low rendered wall with balustraded panels and flights of steps descending to the enclosure, fronted by clipped hedging and shrubs.
Five flagpoles rise from the stand roofs, flying Union Jacks and other flags, including one at the far left that appears dark or red.
The foreground and centre are occupied by an immense crowd standing on the bare sandy enclosure, several thousand strong, almost all in the dress of the period: men in dark suits with straw boaters, soft felt hats and flat caps, and women in long pale dresses with wide-brimmed hats, a few carrying parasols. One woman at the left centre wears a bright green coat and another a yellow-green ensemble, picked out by the tinting. Long shadows are cast to the right, indicating late afternoon light.
At the left a white-painted timber rail separates the crowd from the green turf of the course. Beyond the rail, several mounted jockeys on horseback are gathered, with further riders and officials nearby. A small white-painted judge’s or steward’s box with a pitched roof stands beside the rail at the centre left, and a larger pavilion with a pyramidal roof, probably the judge’s box or a totalisator, stands further along the course. A red-painted vehicle or booth is visible near the rail. Low outbuildings with corrugated roofs stand behind the crowd at the centre.
The background opens onto flat scrubby goldfields country stretching to a low horizon under a broad sky tinted cream, pink and pale green. The card has a white border with light corner and edge wear and scattered age spotting.
Back
Undivided-style back printed in blue-green ink on cream stock, with a central vertical rule dividing the card.
Across the top centre:
“POST CARD.”
beneath which is a short double rule.
To the left of the dividing line:
“For correspondence”
To the right of the dividing line:
“The Address only to be written here”
Within the dotted-outline stamp box at the top right corner:
“Rates of Postage:
Australasia and Great Britain 1D.
Other places 1½D.”
The card is unused and unposted. There is no publisher’s imprint, printer’s name, series number, stamp, postmark, handwritten message, address or sender’s inscription. The stock shows age toning, light foxing and minor corner wear.
Estimated Era
Circa 1908–1915. The back is of the early divided type in which correspondence and address areas are separated by a rule but the layout retains the wording of the transitional period, introduced in Australia after 1905. The printed postage rates of one penny to Australasia and Great Britain and one and a half pence elsewhere correspond to the Imperial Penny Post rates in force before the wartime increases of 1918, giving a firm terminal date. The men’s straw boaters and lounge suits and the women’s long skirts with large picture hats are characteristic of the years immediately before the First World War. Boulder City was then at the height of its prosperity as the residential centre of the Golden Mile, and its racecourse drew large goldfields crowds of exactly the kind shown.
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