The original grog shanty was built by muddy , or dusty Murray Street - a shack with a paddock where bullockies could spell their teams nearby.
The Old Spot at once became the hub of earliest Gawler and flourished in the 1840's especially after the discovery of copper at Kapunda and Burra. The Old Spot thrived on the rapidly growing through traffic to and from the copper mines, the North, the Barossa and the Murray. It took ten days for a crack bullocky to get to Burra from Adelaide, working teams of 16 or more bullocks. The Old Spot was therefore a great resting place.
In the 1840's visitors to Gawler complained about the barren appeaarance of the country and of the drunken rowdyism that centred on the "Old Spot" (Golden Fleece). The Curren and Hughes gang caroused here after bailing up the "Kingsford" (nb the home of Stephen King, not the Kingstord Hotel), then rode off to Crafers grog shanty near Mount Lofty where dead drunk, they were arrested.
In 1842 Henry Calton acquired the hotel, which became the Calton Hotel, and rebuilt it into a rambling single story inn and renamed it "The Old Spot".
This early sketch of Gawler's first tavern shows the pise walls, verandahs and shingle roofs of early colonial buildings.
Henry Calton was the unofficial postmaster until 1849, with a room in the Hotel used to conduct business. The incoming and outgoing mail for Gawler was delivered to the premises. The heyday of the hotel was in the roaring coaching days before the railway arrived (in 1857), replacing the coach.
The Old Spot, much changed but retaining sections of its historic fabric, still operates on the old spot in the heart of Gawler.