Here is the story of this hydrant from the former owner:

"After speaking to some of the local Perth Fire'ees over here I thought this might have been the case in that it was unusual. One of the fire chiefs over here who handles historical stuff like you said he was pretty sure these were either imported ot made under licence here by Dobbie Dico for the US Navy in the 60s."

"Having lived in Exmouth (our only Aus little American town) for many years as a kid and later as a serving Police Officer, I think they were brought here like every thing else the Navy brought upon the town construction. I remember they brought everything from bricks, sand, paper and pens, and even millions of your own currency in a bank here to pay the American servicemen. In those days you could honestly swear you were in the states somewhere, apart from the occasional Aus house built in between. They were fantastic times sadly gone when the US moved out 10 years ago."

"These sort of hydrants are not seen anywhere in Aus, and were unique to Exmouth. It wasn't till a few years ago that they started to replace them with underground attachments due to ongoing maintainance costs."

"Some of the originals like mine are still operational to this day within the town, but are sadly nearly phased out now and sent for scrap metal. I managed to grab one for keepsake for a carton of beer. (the great universal money bartering tool haha). I've kept it for a couple of years now but can't really do anything with it so I decided to sell. I was going to sell it locally but put it on ebay at the suggstion of the fire brigade here as they said it might cause a bit of intrest like it has. Anyway I already have lots of other US memorabilia from the town remember the good old times by."

-- Don Emanuel-Smith