BROKEN Hillites took a trip down memory lane recently paying tribute to Otto Holten who ran a hardware store in the south of the city.
Over the Christmas period, Kevin Chapman took to the Facebook page “Broken Hillites living away from home” asking if people remembered Otto Holten.
“There has been lots talked about the dreadful way the people of Broken Hill treated him, but who can remember the actual hardware shop that he ran?” Mr Chapman said.
“Otto sitting conducting his business at his little desk wearing his grey dust coat, that shop built into the side of the hill.
“The catacomb of rows of shelving, the Red Circle potato chips hanging from nails.
“I think his motto was ‘Everything from a needle to an anchor’.”
In 2018, Library archives officer Alison Wayman wrote about Otto in the Barrier Daily Truth.
“He was born in Denmark in 1894 and came to Broken Hill around 1914 and was first employed as a carpenter at the North Mine,” she said.
“He built his home in the form of a ‘miniature castle’ of many colours which featured a tower in Hebbard Street.”
Ms Wayman reported that he began as a cabinet maker in his backyard and once self-sufficient he became self-employed.
“Over the years he extended his King Street business and by the 1920s he had turned it into a thriving hardware store.
“Unfortunately, tragedy struck during the early hours of November 1970 when his store was gutted by fire while Otto was in hospital.
“With his health failing fast he went to live in a boarding house in Crystal Street and died in July 1971.”
Eight years after his passing a small group of his friends organised by Alf Baum and Lance Hawes formed a committee with the express aim of raising enough money to finish Otto’s grave, erect a monument in commemoration of their friend and have a street named after him, Alison wrote.
In 1980, Otto’s grave was completed, a cairn monument was erected in King Street near the site where Otto’s business once stood and a street Holten Drive was named in his honour.
There is talk about Otto being “blackballed” by the union in Broken Hill.
Conjecture about whether he had unfairly sacked a worker or because he wasn’t affiliated with any unions may have cause this.
Otto was outspoken against “communism”.
In September 1954 he wrote to the Barrier Miner about the Labor Government and Minister Ernest Wetherell’s threats on Sydney workers.
Mr Wetherell came to Broken Hill in 1911 and worked until the General Strike of 1917.
“It is common to hear the cry of Communism when workers dare to fight for improved conditions, but audacious and inconsistent when this ‘froth and bubble’ comes from the mouth of a ‘Labor’ member of Parliament who secured his ‘pork chop’ from the workers,” Otto wrote in his letter to the editor.
Otto revealed that Mr Wetherell was once a “very active member of the Socialist Party” delivering “red hot” speeches from the party’s platform at the old hall in Sulphide Street.
Otto was also part of a band – the East End Dance Band and in December 1945, the Barrier Daily Truth reported a concert at Hillside Park
The band made up of “Otto Holten, E Simes and H. Gasmier contributed several items which were greatly appreciated by the large crowd present at the concert”.
He was involved in many community groups with trophies being award in his name at rifle clubs and the South Golf Club.
In February 1949, Otto was fined five pounds for having sold military ammunition.
The Barrier Daily Truth reported that a “pistol dealer’s licence was not held by the defendant at the time of the sale but one had been obtained since then”.
In November 1950, the Barrier Miner reported that Otto’s store was the target of a robbery.
“Thieves who entered the store of Otto Holten in South Broken Hill on Thursday night chose some valuable goods,” the report said.
“They stole a Browning automatic double barrel shotgun, a Richard Burton double barrel shotgun and a single barrel shotgun of the same make.
“The thieves removed the glass from a roof skylight to gain entrance.”
In 1971, Otto’s probate went in the New South Wales Government Gazette, it was reported that “Otto Herman Holten, late of Broken Hill, retired hardware merchant died 10th July 1971; probate of the will dated 20th November 1952, was granted 23rd November 1971”.
In a 2009 blog post Coast – Desert Artists – Poppy Benton and Jen Mallinson were two of four artists from the Far South Coast of NSW who travelled to Broken Hill for a six-week residency with the Broken Hill Art Exchange.
They wrote about Otto’s Danish Castle in their blog.
“Today we visited a bizarre but interesting place,” the post said.
“Burnt out relics, which left us puzzled and confused. We had too many questions not to do a little research and find out what it was all about.
“It’s been said that you could get anything ‘from a needle to an anchor’ at Otto Holten’s hardware store.
“He created a thriving business that sold anything and everything for over 50 years. He built his own house and shop on the same large block in the predominantly migrant area of the South Broken Hill.
“The house, an astonishing replica of a Danish castle, was destroyed in a storm.
“The shop, a rambling, ad hoc building described as a ‘rabbit warren’ was affectionately known as the grotto.
“Defying union rules, he traded seven days a week, providing the materials needed to build the many houses that sprang up in the area during the mining boom.
“A union dispute marked the end of Otto’s business, and the old man died soon after the shop was burnt to the ground in the 1970s.”
