Aborginal cave art at Yourambulla Aboriginal Caves in the Flinders Ranges South Australia.
Image by denisbin
Hawker.
Hawker was established in 1880 as a railway stop. By 1881 it had a population of 142. Today, as a tourist town it has a population of 250. Hawker has about 300 mm of rain a year, but it can all fall in one week or one month of the year. Crops are still sown in good years. Hawker is 470 m or 1545 ft above sea level.
Yourambulla Aboriginal Caves Historic Reserve.
The name Yourambulla is derived from the Adnyamathanha phrase "yura pilla" meaning two men, and the name is related to the two peaks to the east of the painting sites. The caves here are the largest in the district. The paintings are done in ochre and charcoal. Some are paintings and some are stencils, of a small hand, for example. The symbols depicted were used in initiation and other ceremonies. Symbols include emu tracks, waterholes, camp sites, grave sites, ceremonial food sites etc. Some of the paintings are believed to be 600 or more years old, but others were retouched during Adnyamathanha ceremonies in the 1940s. This is a protected Aboriginal Heritage site.
Wilson.
This was the most northerly town of the Quorn district; it was established in 1881 as the railway came through to Hawker. It is a classic example of a northern farming town established in marginal lands, far beyond Goyder’s Line but set up following the bumper rain years of the late 1870s. It quickly had a store and a hotel. The publican had a well dug to 100 feet in depth to provide water for the town. The Wilson School opened in 1882 but classes had been held prior to this in the Methodist church. In 1900 the town of Wilson had a school, a hotel, a Methodist church, a general store, a butcher, a greengrocer, a blacksmith, a saddler and a carpenter. It had cricket and tennis teams. The population was 73 people, plus another 20 people resided on farms nearby. A war memorial hall was erected in 1921 but just a few years later the 1928 drought killed the town. In 1942 the school and hotel closed and the church was dismantled and moved. Gradually the other town structures crumbled or were vandalised or removed. Most dwellings were left unoccupied not long after 1928. Today it is a “ghost town. “ Its history should not be forgotten- these pioneers came and struggled and tried hard to survive, but the harsh South Australian environment determined their fate.
Kanyaka Homestead.
As explained in relation to the Pekina Run this run was established in 1851 by Hugh Proby who disappeared shortly afterwards whilst returning from a visit to Pekina Run. The next leaseholder John Phillips (with Alexander Grant) had the many fine stone buildings erected. It was a large and prosperous run except during drought years. The drought in the 1860s saw the sheep numbers drop from 41,000 to 10,000. When the government resumed large parts of Kanyaka Run for agricultural settlement, especially for towns like Wilson, the run became unviable. Phillips just walked out of the leasehold in 1881 and the buildings were left to crumble. The station cemetery which is not accessible is across Kanyaka Creek. Dozens were employed on the run in its heyday and many died there too. The large woolshed catered for 24 shearers at once. The property buildings included: station homestead; overseers house; men’s kitchen and dining room; carpenter shop; stables; shearers’ quarters; various huts and sheds; blacksmith shop; cellars etc.
Carrieton.
The Carrieton district has a highly unreliable but average rainfall of around 300mm per annum and the elevation at 395 metres (or 1,300 feet) made it an attractive area for early pastoralists. The first leasehold in the district, the Coonatto Run near Hammond was taken out in 1851 by Alexander Grant and Hugh Proby of Kanyaka Run. Then in 1853 James Grant, one of Alexander’s brother also bought into the leasehold. The town of Carrieton stands on what was part of the Yanyarrie Run. In 1853 the Grants sank a well and built a large stone tank around- the Yanyarrie Whim which is located on the northern outskirts of Carrieton. Yanyarrie Run and Coonatto Run made up the main runs of the Grant brothers. By 1859 the combined runs exceeded 900 square miles. In 1866 the Grants bought property near Millicent for pasturage during times of drought. This was needed in that year as in 1864 they had shorn 87,000 sheep but in 1866 they only had 18,000 to shear. Their wool was carted by bullock dray down to Port Augusta. Another run in the district was Yalpara Run east of Carrieton run by John and Richard Ragless. They had their own desalination water plant in the 1870s to make the well water potable. They faced tough years and during the drought of 1866 half of their 250,000 sheep died. Their run was resumed in 1875.
Despite being many miles beyond Goyder’s Line (even Orroroo was beyond Goyder’s Line) the government resumed the Grant family runs in 1877 to survey the Hundred of Yanyarrie and establish the government towns of Carrieton and Eurelia. Both towns had settlement begin around 1878 just a couple of years before the railway to Quorn was pushed through the area in 1881. With the land sales the Grants bought some freehold land and maintained a small station on Coonatto finally selling up in 1903. As one local newspaper reported in 1880 before the droughts set in “farmers will reach the banks of the Finke River and the McDonnell Ranges”! Beyond Carrieton the town of Johnburg was established in 1882 in the Hundred of Oladdie in the Hills of the same name. But 1882 proved Surveyor General Goyder correct. The grain and the top soil blew away in a terrible drought throughout this region. It was a terrible start to the little towns of Johnburg, Carrieton and Eurelia. Yet they survived.
By 1879 Carrieton had a post office, a general store, Davies blacksmiths and coach builders- the largest operations north of Gawler. (In 1890 this business employed 31 men in Carrieton.) The Carrieton Hotel opened in 1879 with Michael O’Grady being the first publican. The Eureka Hotel opened in 1880, but closed in 1946 and was then demolished. When the government conducted a census in 1881 Carrieton had a population of 120. (Today it has around 130 people.) By then it had a railway siding. Carrieton was an important stop as the carriage lamps were all taken out at Carrieton to have their wicks cleaned and trimmed and the lamps polished before being replaced in the next train. In the early 1880s during the drought Carrieton acquired a school (1882), a police station (1884), St Raphael’s Roman Catholic Church (the large presbytery was built in 1889), a small Methodist Church (1882), an Anglican Church (1888) and the railway station, built in 1885 at a cost of £1,500. The first agricultural show was held in Carrieton in 1882. These days the town has an annual night time rodeo which started in 1953.
After the droughts of the early 1880s came the rabbit plague, the dust storms, the grasshopper plagues, the mice plagues and outbreaks of typhoid. The story of one local farmer, Mr Evans, exemplifies the effects of the drought. It takes 4 bushels to fill one bag of wheat. Here is what he reaped:
1879 508 bushels of wheat
1880 76 bushels of wheat grasshoppers destroyed most of the crops.
1881 108 bushels of wheatdrought.
1882 0 bushels continuing drought.
Cradock.
The Hundred of Wirreanda was one of few hundreds in this area to have a town- Cradock. Local pastoralists asked the government in 1878 to survey a town on the Travelling Stock Route where it crossed Wirreanda Creek. Some town lots were sold in March 1879 with the town being named by Governor Jervois. He had already used his children’s names for other towns- Carrieton (Caroline), Amyton (Amy), Hammond and Johnburgh( John.) The town of Gordon on the Willochra Plain was named after Governor Jervois’ brother. Because Governor Jervois had worked in the military base at Cradock in South Africa, he named this new town near Hawker after that place. Cradock in South Africa had been named after Sir John Cradock a former Governor of the South Africa province.
Despite being 100 kms from Goyder’s Line and being on the edge of salt bush country the small town soon attracted 2 blacksmiths, a store keeper and a post master. When Hawker was established in 1880, the store keepers of Cradock, the Jackson brothers, opened a store in Hawker. In 1881 two hotels were built in Cradock. One was later demolished, but the Cradock Hotel still survives. But by 1881 the crops were failing; the country was dry; the good rain and seasons had gone. No good rains fell again from 1881 to 1889. Yet Cradock continued as there was optimism that good rains would eventually return. The Catholic Church opened in 1883. The government school in Cradock opened in 1881- the first government school in the northern areas. 27 pupils attended the school in its first year.
From D.W Meinig, “Margins of the Good Earth.”
In 1881 the grasshoppers arrived to eat what the drought had not wilted. As the drought continued the rabbits ate everything left. Yet the government was surveying and declaring new hundreds as the northern railway line worked its way up to Marree, beyond Leigh Creek. In 1883 crops still failed but the first (of only two) agricultural shows were held in Cradock. Thereafter the agricultural show went to Hawker. The weatherboard Cradock Wesleyan Methodist Church opened in 1884 until it closed in 1924 when it was replaced with a stone church in 1925. In 1885 there was a mouse plague. Later that year a plague of locusts came to Cradock and finished off the meagre crops. In 1888 terrible dust storms blanketed the town. Farmers petitioned the government for help with their mortgages. It was so dry, with so little herbage that teamsters could not make the journey to Blinman. In 1889 those that remained on the land welcomed the 517 mm of rain in Cradock, and the harvest was good. The average rainfall is 250mm. Then a big drought set in from 1896-1902. Cradock was back to 150mm of rainfall at best, year after year. In 1894 the Anglican Church opened in Cradock; it was demolished in 1958. Jackson’s store closed before 1897. Most families left the district in the mid 1890s. The Wirreanda Hotel closed in 1914. Foxes joined the list of district pests in 1907 soon being in plague numbers. In later years the rainfall got down to 58 mm in 1940! The Roman Catholic Church closed in 1970 and was deconsecrated in 1976 and sold as a private residence to Annette Frankel. Cradock School was held in the old police station from 1929-1949 when it closed.
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