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Craig's is one of the most historic hotels in Ballarat, and is significant as the site of the Royal Commission into the Eureka Stockade, a temporary Ballarat Town Hall, the scene of a huge ball with fugitive American Civil War fighters, the workplace of famed poet Adam Lindsay Gordon, resting place for the visiting Mark Twain, and birthplace of the Melbourne Racing Club, originators of the Caulfield Cup. Originally built and opened as one of the earliest licensed premises as the Ballarat Hotel in 1853, Walter Craig purchased the building from Thomas Bath and re-opened it as Craig's in 1857. In 1865 the sudden arrival of the CSS Shenandoah, a Confederate cruiser running as a pirate raider in the US Civil War, docked in Melbourne, and a delegation of officers headed to Ballarat
The wealth, beauty and fashion of Ballarat were out in full force... every attention that kindness and courtesy could suggest was shown us, and more than one heart beat quicker at such convincing evidence of the existence of sympathy in this country of the Antipodes, for the service in which we were engaged. Many a grey uniform coat lost its gilt buttons that night, but we saw them again ere we bade a final adieu to Australia, suspended from watch guards depending from the necks of bright-eyed women..." Cornelius Hunt, The Shenandoah