Hickey’s post office store

The Iluka History Group has just erected the last in a series of historical interpretive signs along the Riverside Walkway at Iluka.

The new sign highlights the story behind one of Iluka’s oldest buildings which once housed the old Iluka store and post office, established by John Hetherington Hickey.

Throughout the years the business was run by successive members of the Hickey family and became Iluka’s longest running family business from 1887 to 1966.

Hickey’s post office store and the nearby North Head Hotel (now Sedgers Reef Hotel) became the hub of life in the tiny village of Iluka.

It sold everything from a needle to an anchor and the post office performed an important service, providing mail and newspapers to the people of Iluka who were cut off and isolated from the outside world by water. Funding for the sign came from the Lorna Knight Foundation.

Col Hennessy