The first building on this site was a General Store and Bakery with a residence attached. It was established by William Louis Bruce and his wife Annie after borrowing £480 sterling from William Seymour Eaton and Samuel Salter Lincoln, cordial manufacturer on 6 June 1878.
In October 1880 he was offering his business for ‘immediate sale’ as he was retiring but apparently could not find a buyer. On the night of 8 November that year, when Bruce was absent in town, a fire occurred at his store. Local residents, led by Geo Chaplain, an employee of the Brittania Flour Mill opposite the store, managed to extinguish the fire and move a lot of the furniture outside including a piano which, it was noted, was ‘somewhat shaken’. There was some water damage but fortunately the building and stock had been insured. According to The Daily Advertiser, the origin of the fire was a mystery! He did retire the following year after relinquishing the bakery and disposing of his business to Chapman and Lidgate, flour millers. He sold all his furniture, gardening tools, kitchen utensils, saddles and bridles and the piano before he left. Lincoln and Co assumed ownership of the land and store. Various managers then took control of the store until 1907.
On 25 May 1908, Lincoln and Co Ltd sold the property to James Henry Rudd and his wife, Harriet Ann Rudd. The Rudds lived on site managed the store from 1908 until 1922. Then J.W. Richardson (1922-1924) and James Godfrey Charlton (1924-1928) ran the store, neither successfully, being unable to persuade customers to pay outstanding accounts. From 1928 to 1931 Harriet Alice Slade English had the shop and in conjunction ran a subsidised North Wagga Post Office. The public telephone box near the school and the letter box in Gardiner Street were moved to the new Post Office. Mails were despatched to Wagga Wagga twice daily while postal notes and stamps could be purchased. In addition pensioners could make arrangements to receive their payments at the Post Office.
In June 1931, William Frederick (‘Bill’) Ovington advertised in the Daily Advertiser, that the Junction Store was under new management and he was selling groceries, tobacco, cigarettes and confectionery. Just one year before, he had married Doreen Edna Lodge who had worked for the well-known chain store, Gilpins since she had left school and had served that firm as manageress of several of their branches for nine and a half years prior to their marriage in June 1930. Ten years later, in November 1941, Bill purchased the store from Harriet Ann Rudd, widow of James Henry (‘Dar’) Rudd who died on 23 January 1935 for £1000 with a mortgage of £600 provided by Arthur Agesilous Rudd, upon security of the land. After Doreen died at the Lewisham Private Hospital (later Calvary), Wagga Wagga, on 24 April 1945 at the age of thirty-nine, Bill later married Jean Catherine Campbell and they continued to manage the store and post office.
Bill was very community minded. During the Second World War he was involved in salvage drives; He was a prominent member of the North Wagga Hall Committee and a member of Wagga Rifle Club. All of his children (three by his first marriage and three by his second marriage) attended North Wagga Public School. During the 1950 flood, people very grateful for work done by Bill Ovington. When it was at its peak, he was continually answering calls and taking people to dry land. They feared without him there would have been loss of life. In between rescue trips, Ovington supplied isolated people with food and tobacco and made frequent trips to Wagga for fresh meat and papers.
Bill died at home on 2 March 1959 at the age of fifty-six. His widow continued to manage the shop and post office during the 1960s. She married George Watt who lived in William Street.
In the 1970s, Molly Kathleen and Jan Johannes Van de Rijt had the post office and store at 84 Hampden Avenue. The shop shut in the 1970s. It is currently a private residence.
