Moorangoral (original spelling), was first gazetted as a Run in 1848, but had its occupation license purchased by Donald McGregor as early as 1840. At a very early date a village was to spring up on the Run, housing a number of residents who were later to emerge to greater heights. Dame Mary Gilmore, who was one of the later residents, taught at the school there in her youth.
While holding the license, the McGregors were also the first people to successfully run sheep and introduce fine blood horses on the Bland Creek, with the first race meeting held in 1854.
In the wake of political, economic turmoil, combined with riots at Ballarat and the shortage of food in Victoria, squatters from the Bland and as far as Sydney, who could supply butter and cheese, sought to cash in. Beef was overlanded from Canning Downs with the main overland route being via Morangarell as the Bland Creek proved more crossable at this point.
The small town became a major staging terminal for Cobb & Co. There was a Court of Petty Sessions, Church, Police Barracks (with some 20 officers to help with gold escorts) and General Stores.
This saw Morangarell proclaimed a town in 1870, with a bridge built over the creek in 1878 by a builder named Childs, who also built the first hotel, or at least one of them, while the McGregor family built the other. The McGregors’ hotel was said to be built because of the many travellers coming to the homestead in search of refreshments and rest, the McGregors seeing an opportunity to cash in on the trade.
It was reported that on some accounts it was at times likened as the Kings Cross of the outback.
A report of the village in the Town and Country Journal in 1872 however was less than glowing... “passed through, or by the town of Morangarell. I know it’s a town because some people told me so, I’m glad they told me, because otherwise I should have thought that the slab house, with a bark roof (hotel and store), and the post office, made of a few boards fastened together, was the private residence of some well to do honest person, who was ambitious to build a decent house, but had been so long in these 'furrin parts' that he had forgotten how…”
The Morangarell Inn was licensed firstly in 1867 to James Clark then again in 1868-1869. In 1869 it was described as, “Being built entirely of sawn, well seasoned timber, and contains eight commodious lofty rooms. The bar is very large with cedar fittings, shelving etc. attached is a six stall stable, with hay loft.”
The Inn changed ownership over the ensuing year, first James Marshall in 1870, then William Marshall (having departed from the Rock Hotel earlier) took up the license in late 1870 through to about 1874. He held a race day as a celebration of his ownership and also planned a new hotel, calling for the supply of 75,000 bricks?
Following him was John William De Lisle Evans 1874–1876, who also acted as postmaster .
William Marshall again resumed the license from July 1876 until June 1877.
The 13th of March, 1878 saw the hotel and stables condemned to flames, the property being insured with the Liverpool, London, and Globe, and Queen Insurance Companies
Next, followed William Henry Child (possibly the builder of the adjacent bridge) who occupied the license from 1884-1891.
Thomas King Butler was the owner from 1892 to 1909, during which time he saw the hall belonging to the hotel and part of the premises, destroyed by fire on Tuesday 6th December, 1898.
Following Butler was Clarendon Clifford Edmund from 1910 till 1923.
In mid-1924 Johannes Peters took over the hotel, but the following year an exploding soda
dispenser would not only injure his daughter, but would also claim his own life.
The last publicans were Jack and Agnes McCormack, who not only ran the hotel, but served petrol and ran an ambulance service. The hotel also helped the sick and proved to be somewhat of a halfway house for those in need during the depression.
Even as late as the 1920s Mrs McCormack was still serving outlaws, Maguire a old man by this time, and the last of Hall’s gang was still a patron, like others from an earlier time – Frank Gardner and Ben Hall.
The Morangarell Hotel’s fate was to be sealed by the bypassing of the town by the railways, thus it lingered on only until the late 1936 with its licence being purchased by a Sydney interest and transferred to Euglo, now Burcher. The building itself was used as a dance hall then sold to Don Kennedy of Narraburra for the timber, while Bill Hesketh of Temora won the tender to dispose of the iron.
A sign post to William’s Crossing, near the bridge, and a few old pepper trees bare the soul witness to the memory of the hotel’s presence.
Little is known of the second hotel, although it was listed as being run by William Kilthorp in 1872. The “Illawarra”, which, on October 21st, 1882 was transferred from Mr T.Musgrave to Mr W.J Reagan with the proviso from the Licensing Court that the premises be sealed and lined within six weeks of takeover. It then became known as “Reagan’s”