With the popularity of sea and surf bathing in the early 1900s, there was a call for public bathing sheds at Port Macquarie’s Town Beach with separate bathing sheds for women and men constructed in late 1908. A tourist wrote to the Port Macquarie News in 1917 expressing surprise that there were no fresh water showers at the sheds and pointing out that tourists would enjoy a dip in the ocean if a fresh water shower could be indulged in afterwards. A carnival to raise funds to build a shelter shed as a further beach amenity was held on Anniversary Day in 1928.