Corkhill Bros a proud Canberra business for 65 years

Brothers Brian and Patrick Corkhill started Corkhill Bros in 1954, the same year a young Queen Elizabeth visited Australia, Marilyn Monroe married baseball player Joe DiMaggio and Bill Haley and His Comets recorded Rock Around the Clock.

Sixty-five years later, Brian Corkhill, 84, is still a daily fixture at the Hume office, the business busy with its original work of earthmoving but also small subdivision projects and, in more recent years, the processing of green waste. The business now has 48 employees, including three generations of the Corkhill family.

Patrick very sadly died on June 18 this year aged 81, still working until his death on the family's other rural holdings around the region, including Gundaroo.

Brian Corkhill said the family had a dairy farm originally near the current location of the National Library. It later moved to Westridge aka Yarralumla, between the current sites of the Albert Hall and National Museum.

The Corkhill dairy supplied Canberra with milk for nearly 50 years, until work started on Lake Burley Griffin in 1962.

But Brian and Patrick, seeing the writing on the wall, went ahead with Corkhill Bros in 1954, with just one truck.

"We knew we had a limited life on the farm," Mr Corkhill said.

"We had one truck and we couldn't get enough work." They went as far afield as Gundagai to look for work and eventually brought a front-end loader back to Canberra where the growing national capital eventually provided steady business.

"We've done very well," Mr Corkhill said.

"We've had good times and bad times. It's a very competitive business. We use some very expensive equipment but we've battled through for 65-odd years.

"Canberra has been very good to us."

Since 1973, Corkhill Bros have owned and operated Corkhill Bros Landscaping Supplies from the Mugga Lane recycling plant, a business that turns green waste into compost and mulch.

"We end up with about 70 per cent of Canberra's green waste," he said, including that from the new green bins.

"The biggest thing is contamination [of the green bins]. One plastic bag causes an enormous amount of trouble. But people have been very good."

The Canberra Business Chamber is celebrating its 70^th birthday this year and wants to celebrate the city's longest running businesses.

Chamber CEO Dr Michael Schaper said there were businesses still trading even before the national capital existed.

Cusacks Furniture Store last year celebrated a century of trade. Stan Cusack opened the business originally in the main street of Yass in 1918 and then moved it to Canberra in 1927.

READ MORE: The local Canberra business that has been trading for 100 years

"Some of our existing Chamber members have particularly long life spans. These include Corkhill Brothers (established 1954), WR Engineering (1967), and Watson Blinds & Awnings (founded 1969)," he said.

"These survivors have made it against the odds. Most businesses only have a relatively short lifespan. The average life expectancy of a business based in Canberra is still only about five years.

"But we also know many businesses thrive and grow. We want to find the oldest surviving businesses."

The oldest businesses will be celebrated at the Chamber's annual gala dinner, to be held on November 7 at the National Museum.

"We're hoping Canberrans will help us identify who they are. While some names are well known to us, others are not. But they're all important, and they're all part of the history of our town," Dr Schaper said.