The Cootamundra Local History Society has set the record straight: Cootamundra's present ambulance station is 56 years old, not 80.
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The age of 80 was given in a State government media release when announcing the site of Cootamundra's new ambulance station, which is to be built by the end of next year at the rear of the hospital.
"According to our records the building was erected on a vacant block over 1952 and 1953, and was opened in October 1953," said Joyce Orgill, the Society's secretary.
"It was built, according to plan, with a staff residence facing O'Donnell Street and the station proper facing Parker Street, at a cost of 12,000 pounds."
Those claiming the building to be 80 years old were under the impression it was built around an older residence on the corner block, dating back to the 1940s.
However an eye witness, and member of the History Society, Don Elliott, has challenged this.
Mr Elliott, 89, has a clear recollection that the block was vacant when the station was built, so if there was an earlier building there it must have been demolished, possibly decades previously.
Before moving to the "new" site in 1953, Cootamundra's ambulance station was housed in the old City Bank building in Wallendoon Street (shown in the photograph), thought to have stood where the Ex-Services Club bowling greens now are.