The Producers, after Woodman and Electric Light, among names for Grenfell Street, Adelaide city, hotel from 1839
The Producers was the name given to this hotel, rebuilt in Queen Anne style by the South Australian Brewing Company in 1906, anticipating trade from the new East End Fruit and Produce Exchange. Inset: The hotel as the Woodman in 1865 in a muddy Grenfell Sreet, with the tower of the Congregational Church on Hindmarsh Square seen faintly on the right in the distance.
Images courtesy City of Adelaide and State Library of South Australia
The Producers was only one of a series of names for a hotel Grenfell Street, Adelaide city, first licensed in 1839 by John Ragless junior as the Woodman.
The name came from it being the first place of call for tiersmen and teamsters carting timber from the Tiers (as the Adelaide Hills were then known). The Woodman also was associated with German horticulturalists from the Adelaide Hills bringing produce to the city east end market. Heinrich Wilhelm Emcke, who ran the Tivoli Hotel for many years, also had a woodyard in Hindmarsh Square.Another large timber yard was on Town Acre 31, site of the later Botanic Hotel.
In 1900, when Adelaide's new private power station was constructed on the corner of Grenfell Street and East Terrace, the hotel's name was changed to the Electric Light.
Wirh the new East End Fruit and Produce Exchange was being constructed, the hotel was rebuilt in 1906 by the South Australian Brewing Company, anticipating its trade. The contractor was Charles Henry Martin for the £2,130 construction, with the hotel now taking the Producers name to match the market role.
The rebuilt version became an important and rare intact example of a hotel in the Queen Anne style, displaying many of the features typical of that style: terracotta tile roof, elaborate and prominent gables, leadlighting and large and decorative verandah and balcony trim.
Listed as South Australian state heritage in 1984, the hotel two years ;terr again changed name to the East End Exchange when the markets left the city and reverted to being the Woodman Inn at one stage.
In 2024, another change was signalled for the hotel when the Australian government applied for it to be used as a supported residential rehabilitation centre.
