Cooma Monuments and Public Art 9 - Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme - 2 - Hudson & others monument

 

General view of the Sir William Hudson, casualties of the building, and Elido Fachin monument.

Adjacent to the Monaro Highway on the northern approach to Cooma, near the head office of what is now Snowy Hydro, is this rather impressive monument in jackhammered concrete and bronze. It commemorates Sir William Hudson, the first commissioner of the scheme, those who died in the original building of the project, and also has a plaque honouring Elido Fachin, one of the many immigrants who came to Australia to work on the project. 

Memorial to Sir William Hudson, commissioner of the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Authority from 1949 to 1967.

Memorial to the workers who died in making the scheme. Conditions were often dangerous and difficult.

The brutalist concrete and stone construction of the monument brings to mind the materials used in building the dams of the scheme, and the period in which it was built.