For the people of his generation, he was a larger than life character. He was known for his business acumen and outspokenness, but also as an unintentional instigator of the movement to preserve the heritage of Potchefstroom. He is Jurie Schoeman. During the 1970s the...
This story is not about Potchefstroom history, but it is worth telling. It is about one of the largest explosions that occurred in South Africa and it was on 17 July 1932 at Leeudoringstad. The tenuous connection with Potchefstroom is that a report on the conclusions...
Nowadays it is a very humble building, standing in a place where it does not make any sense. Hundreds of travellers pass it every day where it stands next to the on-ramp to the N12 from Potchindustria, presumably not knowing what it is. This is the gunpowder magazine...
After the magnificent concert on Sunday, 8 October, performed by a combined NWU Symphony Orchestra, the Rhapsody Orchestra from Bloemfontein and the North West Youth Orchestra, accompanied by the NWU Choir and the NWU Serenaders, I again realised what an absolute gem...
The house conjures up visions of the giggles of little girls in starched dresses from more than a century ago running in the wide corridor. Under a large tree a child-size table stands with a white starched table cloth and children gather around the table to sip tea...
Marrying a man whose first passion is cars, I was immersed in the history of motor vehicles since we met. Hence, the history of the automotive businesses in Potchefstroom interested me. My husband, Hans, and one of his fellow car-enthusiasts, Dr Dennis du Toit,...
For previous generations the postal service was the only way to stay connected and Potchefstroom had numerous post offices. Now it seems that the postal world is slowly starting to fade away. This became more apparent with the closing of the Noordburg post office by...
Almost all that is left of the thriving mill industry on the Bult during the latter part of the 19th century are mill streams, repurposed as storm water drainage and three street names, Molen Street, Meul Street and Hoffman Street. The first two are self-explanatory...
The Potchefstroom railway station was destroyed by fire during the night of 19 September. This is a mere month after the General’s House, a declared historical building, succumbed to the same fate. The current station building was opened in 1919. It was once regarded...
The humongous explosion of ammonium nitrate in Beirut on 4 August 2020 resonates with Potchefstroom, which had its own ammonia explosion in 1973. I wrote an article on it for the centenary supplement of the Potchefstroom Herald in 2008. It is regarded as the biggest...