Long-time resident makes historic find during home renovations

A blast from the past was brought into the Wangaratta Chronicle building last week by none other than Alan Davenport, the original owner of One Mile Motors. Mr Davenport turns 96 years old next month and in his hands was a Weekly Times newspaper dated 1 September 1928, a little less than a year older than he is. He was renovating a house he bought about 50 years ago and after pulling up some old lino, low and behold the masthead was there fully in tact. He has held onto it ever since and was amazed at the prices of goods and service almost 100 years ago with the Weekly Times itself 4 pence, compared to $4 today. When the paper was printed it was just before The Great Depression and things were about to head downhill financially for people. The paper he had in his hands was 84 pages deep, with a heavy focus on farming goods and stock feed. The Times dedicated page 5 to a regular column 'Victoria's Country Towns', with Benalla the town of the week. During his visit to the Chronicle office Mr Davenport started reminiscing about how Wangaratta had changed as well since he came to town as a 17-year-old in the 1940s. As a 21-year-old Mr Davenport started up One Mile Motors with his brother Fred in 1950 and the business is still going strong today, under different ownership.

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