Cue Aerated Water Factory heritage sign in Austin Street
Stories Above the Street  •  Cue

Cue Aerated Water Factory

Before refrigerated trucks and supermarket shelves, Cue made its own cool drinks — bottled locally and delivered by horse and cart across the Murchison.

Bottling relief from the Murchison heat

Cue had its own soft-drink industry.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, aerated water was the name commonly used for carbonated drinks such as soda water, lemonade and other fizzy beverages.

For a remote and famously hot goldfields town, producing drinks locally made practical sense. Bottles could be filled, delivered to hotels, shops and customers, collected, washed and used again without relying entirely on supplies transported hundreds of kilometres into the Murchison.

At a glance
Early proprietor: William Hynes
Trademark registered: 1897
Later proprietors: Barry Fienberg & George Corbett
Factory photographed: c.1910
Location: Eastern side of Austin Street
Landmark: Opposite Bell's Emporium
Later generation: Maurice “Morrie” Fienberg
William Hynes  •  1897

A tiny logo with a remarkable history.

In 1897 William Hynes of Cue registered a trademark for use on the glass bottles containing his aerated waters. More than a century later, that original design has been faithfully brought back into Austin Street.

The trademark consisted of a circular device bearing the words “William Hynes — Murchison” surrounding a sunburst, with “Cue” placed at its centre.

The mark was intended to identify Hynes's bottles in a system where valuable glass containers were routinely returned and reused. Embossing the manufacturer's name directly into the glass helped distinguish one bottler's property from another.

Look closely at the restored Aerated Water Factory sign today and the same William Hynes — Murchison — Cue emblem appears on both sides.

A genuine 1897 trademark

The modern sign copied the real thing.

The circular logos visible today are not invented heritage decoration. They reproduce William Hynes's original bottle trademark from the goldfields era.

The technology

The bottle was part of the machine.

Many aerated waters of the period were sold in distinctive Codd bottles, named after English inventor Hiram Codd.

Inside the neck was a glass marble. Pressure from the carbonated drink forced the marble against a rubber washer, creating a seal without the screw caps or crown seals familiar today.

To open the drink, the marble was pushed away from the seal. The unusual bottles were valuable enough to be collected and returned to the manufacturer for reuse.

From soft drink bottle to collectable

Some of Hynes's original Cue bottles still survive.

Glass bottles bearing William Hynes's embossed Cue trademark have become sought-after pieces of Western Australian bottle and goldfields history.

One surviving William Hynes Cue Codd bottle carrying the distinctive Murchison trademark has sold at specialist auction for more than $2,000 — an extraordinary afterlife for a container that once held an everyday cool drink.

More than $2,000

A bottle from Cue.

The survival of these bottles gives the factory story a physical connection: objects manufactured for use in Cue more than a century ago can still be held, collected and identified today.

Austin Street  •  c.1910

The factory — and its delivery operation — caught on camera.

A surviving photograph from around 1910 shows the Cue Aerated Water Factory with workers, horses and delivery vehicles lined up outside beneath the painted factory sign.

Cue Aerated Water Factory around 1910 with workers horses and delivery carts
Cue Aerated Water Factory

Cool drinks delivered by horsepower.

The historical caption identifies the factory as being on the eastern side of Austin Street, opposite Bell's Emporium. The horses and carts standing outside show another essential part of the operation: once the drinks were bottled, they still had to reach customers.

A new generation of bottlers

Corbett & Fienberg took over the story.

The historical caption accompanying the c.1910 photograph identifies the factory proprietors at that time as Barry Fienberg and George Corbett.

Their partnership is supported by surviving bottles embossed “Corbett & Fienberg — Cue W.A.”, examples of which remain in private collections today.

The photograph's historical caption records that Fienberg later bought out Corbett and, in time, passed the business to his son.

From factory to customer

Making the drink was only half the job.

A local aerated water factory depended on a cycle of manufacture, delivery and bottle return.

1  •  MAKE

Made in Cue

Carbonated waters and cordials could be manufactured and bottled locally rather than transported already bottled from Perth.

2  •  DELIVER

Horse & cart

The factory's wagons distributed drinks to hotels, stores and other customers around Cue and potentially further afield.

3  •  RETURN

Bring the bottles back

Branded glass bottles were valuable business property. Returned bottles could be washed, refilled and sent out again.

The Fienberg family

The cool-drink trade continued into another generation.

The historical photograph's caption says Barry Fienberg eventually bought out George Corbett and later passed the business to his son “Morrie”.

Other surviving records identify Maurice Fienberg as a cordial manufacturer, strongly supporting the connection with the son remembered in the photograph caption.

Remarkably, Maurice Fienberg was still officially described as an aerated water manufacturer in a Western Australian government record in 1943 — decades after William Hynes registered his Cue bottle trademark.

Life on the goldfields

An ordinary drink tells an extraordinary story.

The aerated water factory is a reminder that the infrastructure of a goldfields town extended far beyond shafts, batteries and mining machinery.

CLIMATE

A hot place to work

Miners, tradespeople, travellers and residents lived and worked through the intense heat of the Murchison. Cool drinks were more than a novelty.

LOCAL INDUSTRY

Made in the Murchison

Producing drinks locally reduced dependence on long-distance transport and created another specialist industry within the town.

SURVIVING OBJECTS

History in glass

Hynes, Corbett and Fienberg bottles survive today, providing tangible evidence of businesses that once operated in Cue.

From Hynes to Fienberg

A local industry across the decades.

1897

William Hynes

Hynes registers his distinctive Cue/Murchison bottle trademark for aerated waters.

EARLY 1900s

Corbett & Fienberg

George Corbett and Barry Fienberg operate the Cue aerated water business.

c.1910

The factory photographed

Workers, horses and carts are photographed outside the Austin Street factory.

1943

Maurice Fienberg

Maurice Fienberg is still officially recorded as an aerated water manufacturer.

Modern Cue Aerated Water Factory heritage sign
Stories Above the Street

Look closely — the bottle trademark is back too.

The modern Cue Aerated Water Factory sign recreates the business remembered in the surviving historic photograph.

But the finest detail may be the two circular emblems on either side. They reproduce the William Hynes — Murchison — Cue trademark registered for his aerated-water bottles in 1897.

What looks at first like decorative signwriting is therefore a recreation of an actual goldfields brand once embossed into glass bottles circulating around Cue.

Historical note

William Hynes's 1897 trademark is documented in contemporary Western Australian government records. The c.1910 photograph's historical caption identifies Barry Fienberg and George Corbett as proprietors and records the factory's Austin Street location and later transfer through the Fienberg family. Surviving embossed bottles provide additional evidence for the Hynes and Corbett & Fienberg businesses. Where later family relationships or dates are not independently certain, cautious wording has been used.

Stories Above the Street

From a bottle of cool drink to a piece of Cue history.

The Cue Aerated Water Factory supplied something simple but important: a cold drink in a hot and isolated town. Yet its story connects local manufacturing, horse-drawn delivery, ingenious bottle technology, several generations of Cue businesspeople and surviving glass bottles now treasured by collectors. Even the smallest logo above Austin Street has a story behind it.