I visited my Mum yesterday and we were reminiscing about shops in Gawler St, Mount Barker, South Australia near where I grew up. Mum mentioned something about sewing and I had an instant flashback to walking past an open door in Gawler St as a child and hearing the loud clattering of many sewing machines running. Mum said these were industrial sewing machines at Rossiter’s Boot Factory and I would have only been about four or five years old 1973/74. We looked at lots of other shops and the changes around Mt Barker but the memory of the boot factory stuck with me so I did some research this morning.

The factory opened 14 May 1945. On 14 May 2019, seventy four years later Mum and I were standing where the factory used to be talking about it.

Map of old Mt Barker businesses

Mt Barker Blacksmiths And Other Businesses

The Mt Barker factory was a branch of the Unley factory and today is Rossi Boots. Here is some of their history.