Historic local anniversary: Geraldton Civic Centre on Cathedral Ave marks 60 years as a community hub

It has been six decades since Queen Elizabeth II was joined by crowds to open Geraldton’s Civic Centre, which has been a hub of the community ever since.

On Friday, the building which is the home of the local government and site of many council meetings and elections, marked its 60th anniversary.

The Geraldton Civic Centre was officially opened by the Queen on March 24 1963, amid a sea of onlookers along Cathedral Avenue.

Since its opening the building has seen a number of changes and refurbishments, and was the home of the Geraldton Regional Library between 1968 and 1993.

City of Greater Geraldton Mayor Shane Van Styn said the Civic Centre was a historic part of Geraldton.

“To this day, the Civic Centre remains a prominent building which holds a lot of local significance to our community,” he said.

“You could ask anyone and they’d tell you they were in the company of royalty right here, they remember attending the Library many moons ago, or attending the Centre for tasks such as voting in local elections or attending council meetings.

“It’s safe to say, most of our local population would have come into contact with this very historic building.”

The Geraldton Civic Centre was built to replace the old municipal offices, which had been operating since 1897 and are now home to the Geraldton Regional Art Gallery, as the town grew rapidly after World War II.

The 1963 trip wasn’t the last visit to the Geraldton Civic Centre for the Queen either, with Her Majesty returning to re-open the centre in 1988 after extensive refurbishments.

Local woman Shannon Hanson met the Queen in 1988 and handed her flowers when she was four years old.

“As a policeman was telling I couldn’t go through, Prince Phillip saw me and told him it was OK and to let me and a couple of children pass,” she said.

“I ran up to Queen Elizabeth and handed her flowers . . . she said ’thank you’.”

A number of milestone anniversaries will be marked in 2023. Along with the Geraldton Civic Centre, the Doc Docherty Pool in Mullewa also celebrated 60 years when it hit its anniversary on February 9, and June will mark 20 years since the first stage of the Geraldton Foreshore’s redevelopment, which saw the foreshore’s playground built.