In 50 years' time how well will you remember the properties and characters in your street, and the stories associated with them?
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This is the question that spurred members of the Tenterfield Family History Group to create a database -- as detailed as possible -- of the Tenterfield central business district.
What this database will be used for is still up for debate (a grant to cover the cost of publishing a book would be ideal), but group members are drawing a line in the sand so that information up to this point will not be lost.
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The A Walk Down Rouse and High Streets project started out in 2019. It's inspired by one Henry Kline who arrived in Tenterfield in 1889, working at Whereat's Boot Factory. Fifty years later, in 1939, he recorded his memories of the shops along Rouse Street starting up at Stannum House.
Yvonne O'Sullivan typed up Mr Kline's reminiscences from a carbon copy of that recording, forming the basis of the new project. Elaine Klowss came on board, photographing the buildings as they are today.
The project doesn't quite extend to Stannum House. Its terms of reference are every premises along Rouse Street from Miles to Molesworth, and along High Street from Rouse to Logan.
Group members have each been assigned different shopkeepers to investigate and all the strings of research, including contributions from Jeff Holland and Geoff Sullivan, will be tied together.
"It's like a jigsaw puzzle," coordinator Kay Hurtz said.
Mrs Hurtz said street photographs taken by the late Nancy Fox in 1992 are also being used.
She said the online Tenterfield Star database is a useful resource from 1875 to 1955 and then the so-called Quota phone books have provided contact details from 1988 on.
"That still leaves a gap of 30-odd years."
The project has its own Facebook page (there are a few questions to answer before you can join) where information is gathered and exchanged. It has around 400 members but the group is always looking for more.
Wherever possible the history of a location such as the architect, builder, proprietors, prior building(s) and incidents such as fires is all collated, leading to a wealth of information on the town's growth.
It will all feed in neatly to the National Monument project which will showcase the town's federation roots.
