Boot Hill

Post date: Jul 4, 2017 9:58:40 AM

About 20 years ago someone tied their old shoes to a barb wire fence on a roadside an hour north of Gresford in the NSW Hunter Valley. Others, seeing the shoes, added theirs. Today the fence and surrounding trees are festooned with thousands of shoes. The slight rise has been officially named Boot Hill. This is not a well trafficked road, but nonetheless it now is an item of interest for tourist promotion in the surrounding Dungog Shire. The Futility Closet website recently ran an article about Shoes Corner, people to leave unwanted footwear at 109th and Calumet Avenues in Hanover Township. It appears the shoes left on the curb-side number in the tens at most. Hanover has a population just in excess of 11,000 people. Boot Hill has thousands of shoes and the nearest town, Gresford is about an hour's drive away on a dirt road and has a population of maybe 300. Obviously public art is not dependent on visitors or location.