This building will be instantly recognised by many located at 14 Wilson Street, Kalgoorlie.
Today it is an excellent Italian restaurant called Orecchiette’s. However if you compare the two photographs you will see something missing. ie The Bulls head over the main door !!!! I have tried to find out what happened to it but no one seems to know.
Orecchiette Italian Restaurant, 14 Wilson Street, Kalgoorlie
The building, as you will agree, was purpose built as a butchers and finally closed its doors as a butchers shop under the name of Davis Meats, in the mid 1990, if I remember rightly. Since then it has re incarnated into several different restaurants names.
The Truth 1912
From what I can find, the building was built about 1912 when the first business was opened as Horan Butchers and bakers also with a shop in the town of Malcolm. The partners, John and William Horan owned a large cattle station at Malcolm. By 1919 the bakers part seems to have closed down and just the butchering side continued.
W.A. Record 13 December 1919
The business was founded by two brothers, John and William Horan. In 1919 the business was in crisis, when John Horan, who was in partnership with his brother William, was accused of the murder of James William Brady (Aged 45yrs) at the Kalgoorlie Hotel, on June 12 1919, by shooting him twice in the head. Brady was a former employee of Horans and there had been bad feeling between the two.
Horan eventually went to trial and was found not guilty on grounds of insanity. He was conveyed to Fremantle prison to be incarcerated at ‘His Majesty s pleasure’. He was then transferred to the Claremont Asylum for the insane. In 1922 an appeal was lodged in the Supreme Court of Western Australia. A doctor gave evidence that the hallucinations that Horan suffered from at the time of the murder dissipated after three weeks. He now considered him to be sane. In Sept of 1925 Horan was released from the asylum. He was only a few months too late to see his youngest daughter Philomena who died in March 1925:
Further Reading:- There is a full report of the trial, the appeal and his release at the following links:-
Trial Appeal Release
It is not know what happened to John Horan after his release but from the obituary below it seems he went to Queensland where he died in 1942. So he ended up serving just over 5 years for the murder.
Was he really insane do you think??? The general public didnt seem to think so!
Sunday Times 1925
Queensland Times (Ipswich) (Qld. : 1909 – 1954), Tuesday 7 April 1942, page 2
OBITUARY. MR. JOHN HORAN, At the Mater Misericordiae Private Hospital, Brisbane, on March 25, the death occurred of Mr. John Horan, a well-known and highly-respected resident of Kalbar. The late Mr. Horan war born at Birr, King’s County, Ireland, and came to Australia over 50 years ago. He first settled in Victoria, and then went to New South Wales, eventually going to Western Australia on the discovery of the Murchison goldfields. In conjunction with his brother, the late Mr. William Horan, he acquired and developed extensive areas of pastoral lands, including three sheep and cattle stations known as Glenorn, Melita, and Minora. The acquisition of this pastoral country was followed by the establishment of the well-known butchering business of Horan Bros., Kalgoorlie. After the disposal of his Western Australian in interests, the late Mr. Horan came to Queensland, and purchased a property in the Fassifern district, where he resided up to the time of his illness. He is survived by his wife, five sons, and one daughter. A daughter,Philomena, pre-deceased him.
Moya Sharp
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