“Not many people had cars back then, but in the main street there were nine parking areas. If you were parked in the middle people just left the keys in the car and you would move their car, take your car out and put their car back,” he said. “Could you imagine if you did that today?” As Griffith prepares to celebrate its 100^th birthday Mr Stacy and his wife Nancy have shared their memories of the city they have lived in since the 1920s.

“There was a man called Harry Pervis from Carrathool; he had a racing car and he held a race between a horse and the racing car where the Exies Oval is now.

“He went on to work for Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith he came up here with a Southern Cross plane and I worried my father for 10 shillings to go for a flight with him.

“He took me up - Griffith looked bare as anything back then and now it looks like an oasis.”

Both were children of soldier settlers who came here following the war. “The foundation stone of this town were the 2000 ex-servicemen who came here after WWI,” Mr Stacy said.

Mrs Stacy, who met her husband while working in the city library, lived in a one room space on Kooyoo Street and one of her most treasured memories of watching her city grow is the opening of the theatre and the painstaking care that went into putting together its famous curtain. 

“We fought for that theatre for a long time,” she said.

“The curtain was the big thing, I would lie awake at night thinking ‘how can we do these oranges on it’.

“We could walk down the street in the 40s and 50s and know everyone, I remember my two-year-old took off chasing her father down the street and I had to go into every shop looking for her and someone in the co-op just had her sitting on the counter until I got there, that wouldn’t happen today.”

Griffith’s centenary celebrations will kick off on August 4. The Steggles Street Party will be held on August 6 and all residents are invited to join the celebrations.

Visit www.griffith2016.com.au