Maffra Sugarbeet Factory

We are beavering our way through the photographs, cataloguing them to our database. This is the 2210th to go into the system. It shows the Maffra Sugarbeet factory some time after the Sugar Store was added in the 1920s, the section on the left. Our museum building was originally off to the left, out of this photograph.

However what really caught out eye, was the group of four beet drays in front. All are identical, and only one appears to have a driver. There is a faint smudge where another could have been - the whole four are out of focus as they were obviously moving. Did the drivers walk? were they a bit like packhorses and one was trained to follow another, or hitched to the one in front? Although what chance is there that struggling beet farmers would own more than one dray?

There is a bigger copy of the photo HERE.

The Sugar Store, the section on the left, is all that remains today, clearly in view on the right as the road heads off to Sale.