Jacob Hagen, a "wealthy Quaker merchant and landed proprietor" who came to South Australia in 1839, was first to own the land which was to become Echunga. Soon after his arrival, he divided his Special Survey into township blocks, so even if he was not the first settler at Echunga, it is fair enough that the first inn there, built beside what was to become the main road, should be called the "Hagen Arms." He may even have built it, though the first official licensee was A. Adamson in 1853-59-preceded, in local tradition, by one Joe Fry.
The inn was typical of the locality and the day, with three long, low rooms across the front, the walls of wooden slabs, the roof of shingles. A brightly painted "coat of arms" beside the front door lifted the place above the usual run of country inns.
It provided plain fare and accommodation, and was for long the only place for local gatherings. It was natural that the public meeting which formed the first Echunga District Council should have been held there; equally natural that Jacob Hagen should have been chairman of the meeting and first chairman of the Council.
The Echunga gold rush of the 1850s shot the "Hagen Arms" into prominence. Its bar buzzed with rumours.
On wings of such fortune, a new "Hagen Arms" went up, this time of stone and of two storeys, with ornamental railing on the balcony. It is substantially the building of today.
Locals, who had seen William Chapman actually pan gold from a handful of gravel from a neighbouring creek, pulled a tremendously long bow. Most of the 700 diggers who rushed to peg claims in the first two months toasted their luck at the Arms.
Echunga gold, like that of many another find in the Hills, proved elusive and transient, but before all the excitement had subsided the "Hagen Arms" had another golden day in November 1867, when Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, lunched there on his way to an outing at the lakes. His Royal Highness drove a four-in-hand into the hotel yard, under welcoming arches of flowers s and and laurel, laurel, and a "appeared to enjoy himself thoroughly. He waved most agreeably when leaving for Strathalbyn."
Then came the excitement that followed the finding of several small diamonds of good water on the old gold workings. That had a shorter life than the gold rush. Echunga was no Rand, any more than it was another Ballarat.
Text by Max Lamshed from Adelaide Hills Sketchbook (Rigby 1971)
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