Cause and effect. White City was an attractive site for many of the people of Perth, and when the Aboriginal people of Perth started to enjoy themselves too much the fun-fair needed to be regulated, monitored. So pass cards were issued to Aboriginal people for them to be admitted into the city centre (now called the CBD, then probably called town).

I know about White City because I was given a wrong lead in my research. I was told about the exception that was made for a man named Krakouer, the leech gatherer at the Royal Perth Hospital - a blackfella who did an important job and needed free movement between hospital and river. In the course of my research, my following of hazy leads, I found that the man was not named Krakouer at all. This was another bum steer.

So I found myself with a box of documents, correspondence filed under "White City" in the State Archives, and I read of convoluted potical matters between the state government and city council and licensing and church authorities. The Women's Service Guild, an early feminist organisation, lobbied to have White City closed down.

White City - Carnival Square. A gambling place.

The correspondence file referred to the problems with installation of septic tanks and lavatories, problems with the Swan River rising and the land along the Esplanade being too waterlogged to dispose of tank effluent. This was a battle between the Premier's Department, the Perth City Council and health inspectors.

White City was: ramshackled buildings and sideshows on a filthy muddy patch within cooee of the Supreme Court. It was established and run by the Ugly Men's Association, the voluntary worker's association under President Mr. A Clydesdale MLA. It was known as Ugly Men's Coon Town. The revenue was used for political purposes in the first instance, the money going to Trades Hall, until authorities jacked up about it.

In Perth's Centenary year, in 1929, it was seen as presenting a bad impression for special visitors. This is when the pressure was on to close the whole thing down.

What they did there: boxing, games of chance - housey-housey, sweat-wheels. Whippet racing. All sorts of wickedness, I expect.

The tedium, the boredom, written into all of these official documents. The difference between the tone of this description and the lived, invested experience.

White City changed the experience of living in Perth for Aboriginal people. They now needed passes to get in, which involved becoming a honorary whitefella without any of the benefits, giving up on fraternising with family and friends and other Aborigines and taking on another way of living. (See the film by Stephen Kinnane about Aboriginal resistance to this oppression, The Coolbaroo Club , 1996)

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