TODAY it has become home to multiple telecommunications antennae which, to many, has turned it into a highly visible eyesore.
But I remember the time when it was just the very ordinary Byron Bay water tower sitting on the top of Paterson Hill and a very obvious landmark from the sea for local fishos heading out to the Seven Mile and Nine Mile reefs.
That changed in the late 1980s when Byron Bay artist, Ian Walker, funded by Byron Council and a $15,000 Bicentennial Authority grant, was commissioned to paint it.
The end result was a colourful mural depicting the history of Byron Bay and its environment.
Ian spent three days a week for a year completing the mural, the story of which spans the history of the town from early Indigenous days through to the ‘discovery’ of Cape Byron by Captain Cook, the arrival of Europeans, the destruction of the Big Scrub, the growth of industries such as whaling, and the growth of the tourist trade.
Delayed by wet weather, Ian eventually presented the completed mural to the council in August 1989.
At the time, he said the mural story ‘ended’ with a note of hope for the environment – a man planting a tree.
Block out, if you can, the unsightly infestation of antennae on the tower’s roof, and it’s easy to see the local environment around the tower is a lot better today than it was when the photo in this Northern Star newspaper clipping was taken in 1989.