CAARP
Cinema and Audience Research Project

"Kookynie was one of the boom towns of the eastern goldfields - large enough by the start of the twentieth century to be gazetted a town in 1901. By 1905 it had a population of 1,500, substantial buildings and all major services: schools, a hospital, six hotels, shops, fire brigade, sporting teams, etc. Photographs of the Town Hall show a small corrugated iron building, with access in the front wall through a door flanked by two small windows. No evidence of a bio-box can be gleaned from photographs of the exterior, and there is no photo of the interior: no-one has mentioned the inside of the hall in reminiscences to the local historian. The Salvationa Army Biorama Company visited the town in October 1903, March 1904 and December 1904, but it is not clear which venue they used. Photos of the Town Hall exist in 1907 and 1909, so it was probably here that Bartlett's Electric Biograph and Blind Entertainers performed in January 1907. However, it may have been the Mechanics Institute, which was the bigger hall, used for dances and parties." (Bertrand 2001)

References
Cinemaweb: http://www.ammpt.asn.au/CinemaWEB/SITE/view.php?rec_id=0000000315