WHEN they tell you things aren’t made the way they used to be, look no further than New Norfolk for evidence.
It sits in plain sight: on Hamilton Road, one on each side of the highway, are two brick chimneys – one round and one square.
The two towers are what remains of a steam age, when the primary motive power for industry and agriculture in the Valley was superhot water.
These two constructions belong to the original Peg factory, dating from 1926, and less than a kilometre away, at Valleyfield, a brick chimney that’s from earlier still, back to 1857.
The original Peg Factory was opened by the Pioneer Woodware Company in 1926, manufacturing dolly pegs – so-called because they resembled a legged doll – from sassafras logs harvested near Maydena.
At its peak, its workforce of about 100, mostly women, turned out about 1.4 million pegs a week. While it had competitors elsewhere in Australia, the factory was able to promote its raw product, the fragrant sassafras, did not stain fabric.
In March 1948, the original factory was razed by fire. While the local brigade turned up quickly, a combination of ample wood supplies and a building that lacked provision for firefighting resulted in the largest blaze ever experienced in New Norfolk.
The damage bill was said to be 40,000 pounds, more than $2 million in today’s terms.
As Australia’s largest pegmaker, the loss was considered a kind of national emergency; a new factory was built and opened in June 1949. Square spring pegs – wood with steel springs – were introduced alongside the traditional dolly pegs in the late 1950s.
In the famous flood of April 1960, the River Derwent swept over its banks and flooded the factory, ruining stock and damaging machinery. Months later, the Federal Government lifted import restrictions and the market was flooded with imported pegs.
The then-Warden of New Norfolk, Clyde Fitzgerald, was less than happy about the cheap imports.
“Most housewives spend about $1 a year on pegs … I can’t see another dollar a year making any difference,” Cr Fitzgerald told the Derwent Valley Gazette.
The company was sold to what is now Norske Skog Boyer in 1962, and was profitable for a decade but closed at Christmas in 1975.
Today, a single circular brick tower, part of the steam-power generation system of the Pioneer Woodware Company, is all that remains to the casual observer on Hamilton Road.
But in fact, a closer inspection finds that more than one of the old factory buildings also remain. The largest is a warehouse for a company that uses its capacious interior to slow-dry exotic Tasmanian timbers.
So there again, on massive shelves, are sawn logs of Sassafras.
Photo: The Peg Factory after it was razed by fire, New Norfolk Historical Information Centre