Lee's Hotel

The Original 'Pub with no Beer'

To contact us:

Phone: (07) 4776 1577

Fax: (07) 4776 1503

E-mail: leeshotel@bigpond.com

 

The Original Pub with No Beer

In 1943 Local farmer Dan Sheahan rode 20 miles to town for a beer at the Day Dawn Hotel in Ingham.  Beer was rationed during the war and the American servicemen had drunk the bar dry the night before.  On hearing this from the publican Gladys Harvey, and unhappy about riding home dry, Dan penned a poem that he called the “Pub without beer”.

On January 1^st 1944, the NQ Register published the poem in Ben Bowyangs column.

In 1956 songwriter Gordon Parsons was handed a scrap of paper at the Taylors Arms Hotel in NSW with the poem as an “anonymous” verse.  He revamped it and presented it as a song to Slim who recorded it on the back of “Saddle Boy” on April Fools Day 1957.

Confusion of the songs origin reigned for years until Slim acknowledged Dan’s claim in his book “The Country Mile”.

The Original Pub With No Beer was owned by the Harvey family and was partly demolished and rebuilt as Lee’s Hotel.

Recently Lee’s hotel received Queensland Icon Status through the Queensland Heritage Trust and was formally recognized as the Original ‘Pub with no Beer’.

We can assure you, we are unlikely to run out of beer again!

Dan Sheahan

The true story in a nutshell

Dan Sheahan’s famous poem becomes Slim Dusty’s song

The Day Dawn Hotel