Black and white postcard of cars parked outside the Plantation Hotel. The back has a box for a stamp and text reading, 'REAL PHOTOGRAPH PRODUCED IN AUSTRALIA BY MURRAY VIEWS, GYMPIE, Q'. From 1950, guests would spend the night at The Plantation Hotel as part of a stopover point with Pioneer Bus Tours.

The building of the Plantation was one of the signals of “a new dynamism” aimed at addressing accommodation shortages in Coffs Harbour (Coffs Harbour: Volume II, 1946-1964, by Neil Yeates, 1990, p. 140. A physical copy can be accessed at the Coffs Harbour Library, https://coffsharbour.spydus.com/cgi-bin/spydus.exe/FULL/WPAC/BIBENQ/6147080/336678,2.

The Plantation Hotel opened the 22nd of February 1955 and offered free beer all day, capitalising on the extension of hotel closing times to 10pm by the Liquor Amdendment Act 1954 (Advocate 25 February 1955).

The hotel was to have 24 bedrooms and other trading quarters, including lounges, parlours, a saloon, public bar, beer garden and bottle department. The Australian National University Open Research Library has photos of the curved hotel facade and a record of the building specifics, https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/118609.