User:ThePost StKilda/sandbox

The Post St Kilda formerly Post Office Club Hotel and the Buck’s Head Hotel 1871 –

306 St Kilda Road, corner Inkerman Street, St Kilda MEL: 58 C10

This was most likely the hotel in High Street (now known as St Kilda Road) whose license was renewed on 11 December 1871 by William Farmer. When the St Kilda Council selected the site for the Post Office, it was referred to as ‘opposite to the Buck’s Head Hotel’, and the hotel eventually took the name of this landmark.

Owned by the Davis family between 1962 and 2002, it was a favourite spot of several colourful local, but not always law-abiding, characters, including Harrison, Twistie, Nugent, ‘Pretty Dulcie’ Markham and Big Fatty Burns. One criminal regular was Joe Collins who lived in St Kilda nearly all his life: after travelling to the United States with boxer Darcy Duigan in order to avoid conscription, Collins was caught robbing a liquor store and spent seven years in Alcatraz. Long-time barman Stan Brown remembers putting guns belonging to the clientele in paper bags with their names clearly marked, and placing them behind the bar in the 1960s! During this time, SP bookies operated in the lane behind the hotel and beer was sold illegally over the back fence on Sundays.