A photograph of Main Street in Drouin taken during World War II in 1944.
Part of the "A Small Town at War - the Drouin Collection", it is one of 88 images purchased by the Drouin Rotary Club from the National Library of Australia (NLA).
In 1944, official war photographer Jim Fitzpatrick was sent to Drouin to capture how Australians were contributing to the war effort.
It was part of an intensive publicity propaganda campaign to prove to our allies - particularly the Americans - that Australia was doing its bit for the war effort.
The article appeared in "The South West Pacific" magazine, which was produced by the Australian Information Service (AIS) to be distributed overseas. The magazine was not meant to be seen by Australian public.
Mr Fitzpatrick, together with journalist Dave Stevens, only stayed a few days in Drouin. Some of the images that were contributed to Fitzpatrick were taken at a later date, early 1945. They are believed to be the work of Gordon Short.
The captions accompanying the photographs highlight the wartime sacrifices of the small town.
Of Drouin's 1100 population, 150 were fighting overseas. The few men that appear are either servicemen home on leave, in essential services or too old to fight.
"Really the Prince's Highway - one of the two main roads linking Sydney and Melbourne - but for a few hundred yards it is still Main Street in the language of Drouin folk," the photograph caption reads.
"It is busiest on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons (market days). In the foreground, service station hand puts his car jack under the horse-drawn tradesman's cart. Cars are not frequent these days, with petrol rationing and tyres not obtainable by the ordinary motorist. Before the war, nine out of 10 households had their own cars."
In addition to Drouin, two other towns appeared in the magazine - Glen Innes in New South Wales and Nuriootpa in South Australia. However, these were only small articles with less images.
The Drouin photographs are unusual because of the extent of cooperation received from the local community and the comprehensiveness. They are the most used set of photographs of a country town in the NLA collection.
The photographs were found in a drawer in the New York office of the AIS in 1981. They were given to the NLA in Canberra.
After being purchased by the Drouin Rotary Club, custodianship was given to the Drouin History Group.
Visitors to Drouin can see 10 of the images from the collection on panels on Main St. They start near Nick's Bakehouse and continue towards the post office.
Photograph and information courtesy of the Drouin History Group.
Visit drouinhistorygroup.org.au to find out more.