Horseshoe Bend Hotel was the southernmost licensed hotel in Central Australia, and the first hotel north of Oodnadatta. The headquarters of Engoordinna Cattle Station, the hotel grounds also included an extensive group of buildings and stockyards which were built on the flat lands between the sandhill and the river. Horseshoe Bend was given its name due to its proximity to the giant curve in the river. The hotel was frequently occupied by passing travellers and stockmen. It was also the site of the mail change. Mail teams from Alice Springs and Oodnadatta would meet at the hotel, exchange loads, and then turn back to continue their deliveries. Gus Elliot was the proprietor of the hotel in the year Strehlow died. R. B Plowman has also written about his arrival into Horseshoe Bend country. In his book, 'The Man from Oodnadatta', Plowman writes: ‘There is a rise of over two thousand feet in the five hundred miles separating Lake Eyre from the Macdonnell Ranges. Excepting for the step-up on the tablelands below Charlotte Waters, there is, however, no noticeable increase in elevation until Old Crown Point is passed. From there on to Horseshoe Bend, twenty-eight miles further north, the rise is perceptible. ‘Before the Bend comes into view there is a steady climb to the crest of a big sandhill. From its summit the traveller looks down on the buildings and yards of what is at once an hotel, a post office, a store, and the headquarters of a large cattle station…' (Plowman, 41)
Reference: R. Plowman, The Man from Oodnadatta, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1933
