Penong. Far West Coast.The outdoor windmill museum. : 無料・フリー素材/写真
Penong. Far West Coast.The outdoor windmill museum. / denisbin
| ライセンス | クリエイティブ・コモンズ 表示-改変禁止 2.1 |
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| 説明 | Penong. The tranquillity of the Wirangu Aboriginal people was disrupted when the first pastoral lease was issued for the lands where Penong now stands. That lease (36 square miles) was issued to Robert Barr Smith and his partner William Swan in 1861. This lease was contiguous with the other leases taken out by Barr Smith and Swan who had their headquarters at Yalata near Fowlers Bay but their runs stretched from near Streaky Bay to the Western Australia border. There were two other adjoining leases to that of Smith and Swan’s leases which covered a further 109 square miles. These three runs were resumed by the government between 1889 and 1893 for closer settlement. The Hundred of Burgoyne was declared in 1890 and the township of Penong was surveyed in 1892. The word means in an Aboriginal language “rock hole”. This was taken from the name of the Barr Smith and Swan leasehold Penong station which had a manager’s house and wool shed on it. Mr A. B. C Murray purchased most of the Penong station run in 1890 and bought his family to live on it. The wool shed became the centre of social life in the Penong area until 1895 when the first Penong town blocks were sold by the government. The social centre then became the town and not the Penong station woolshed. The purchasers of the first town blocks included the Methodist church, a block for the Institute, a blacksmith, a saddler, a store keeper and eight blocks were purchased by A.B.C. Murray. In fact their old station store was replaced by the Murrays with a store in the town in 1905 on the site which later had the hotel built on it. A. B. C. Murray was a leader of the town and a great friend and supporter of the local Wirangu people. When he died in 1908 his son Garth Murray (not D. E. F. Murray) took over. In turn when he retired from the property in 1922 thirty two Wirangu people wrote a letter of thanks to Garth Murray showing that not all Aboriginal groups were treated poorly and disrespectfully by early white pastoralists and farmers. They wrote” We your employees of Yalata and White Well stations feel that we cannot allow you to take your departure from amongst us without expressing our keen regret at the severance of the ties that have bound us to you for so many years. By your just and generous treatment you have built up a spirit of comradeship that has been a constant source of pleasure and inspiration, you carry away with you the affection and loyalty of your whole staff …..Please accept the expression of our admiration, goodwill and esteem which we present with very sincere wishes for your future comfort and happiness.” Unfortunately not all pastoralists worked so respectfully with their local Aboriginal workers. The first two general stores in Penong were run by the Murray family and Lashman Singh and the Singh family. The Singh’s store was built in 1912 and is now the only general store in Penong. It became Betts Store in 1914 and that family ran it until 1951. At its peak in the 1920s Penong’s Main Street had three stores, a Methodist and an Anglican Church, a hotel, bakery, Police Station, Institute Hall and a blacksmith. When Murray’s 1905 store closed it became the hotel which opened in 1910 with some additions to the old two room store. The Institute Hall opened in 1901 and was the first public building in the town. It was replaced by a new Hall in 1966. The old hall then became a factory producing surf boards from 1974 to about 1990. Penong is near the famous Cactus Beach surfing area. Postal services were conducted from various private houses in Penong from 1891 rather than on Penong station. The first Police Station opened in Penong in 1911. It was demolished in 1977 and a new police station was built on the same site. The first Penong School opened in Murray’s Penong station woolshed in 1893. It ran until 1899 when the government Penong School opened in a stone building which was a combined three roomed teacher’s house and school room. By the 1920s all room in the building were used for school purposes. As other local schools like Bookabie closed enrolments increased in Penong School. In the 1970s surplus timber famed school rooms were sent from Ceduna to Penong. The first Methodist church services in Penong were conducted in Murray’s woolshed in 1893. A Methodist manse was built in Penong in 1901. The first timber and tin Methodist church was built (where the police station now stands) in 1901. The current stone Methodist Church opened in 1912 and is now owned by the Uniting Church but run as a community church. In 1909 a prefabricated wood and iron Anglican Church was erected in Penong. It was consecrated as St Alphege’s Anglican. It was replaced with a new church in 1962 which was consecrated by the bishop of Adelaide. The old church was dismantled and sold. The main produce of the district is wheat and the farm and town dwellers all obtain their water from underground sources. Hence the only tourist attraction in the town is the outdoor windmill museum. There are 26 operating windmills around the town and the quirky Windmill Museum opened in 2016 as a showcase of old and new, small and big, and “Bruce” the biggest Windmill in Australia. It is the 35 feet wide Comet windmill which was originally used to pump good quality water for the steam train engines. It was made in 1932 and began life with the Commonwealth Railways. It later went to a sheep station near Kingoonya. Only 15 Comets were ever made and only two are outside of Queensland. The manufacturer of the Comet, as well as many other styles of windmill, was the Sidney Williams Co which was originally based in Rockhampton but later had a factory in Sydney. Another colourful windmill in the museum is the William Riddle eight foot wide sail windmill. It was manufactured in Yorketown Yorke Peninsula by Riddle’s works which operated from 1899 to 1940. This windmill came from a property at Bookabie. Another iconic and large windmill is the Southern Cross with a sail span of 25 feet. It was manufactured in Toowoomba QLD and the one in the museum was made in 1941 for Euria station at Bookabie. It was moved later to a station at Nundroo before being erected in the museum. The unusual sail design of the Adelaide Challenge Windmill was manufactured by Horwoods in Adelaide. That design was only made between 1884 and 1894. This particular windmill has a sail span of 16 feet and was first erected at Anna Creek sheep station in the Far North of South Australia. There are many other interesting windmills in the museum to be discovered. The Penong cemetery was established in 1892 with the first burial in 1894 but several surrounding stations including Penong Station had their own family cemeteries. Penong is a very remote town. It is 850 kms from Adelaide and the next town going west is Norseman with a population of 562 people compared with Penong’s 343 people. Norseman is 1,128 kms west which is just over 700 miles away. The western highway or Eyre Highway was only created during World War Two for war needs. Three hundred miles of road was made from Ceduna to the border in 1941. The Eyre Highway was bituminised from Port Augusta to Ceduna in 1967 and from Ceduna to the WA border in 1976. Near the Penong coast is Lake MacDonnell which provides the largest and purest deposits of gypsum in Australia at a place called Kevin. The gypsum has been mined since 1919 and the reserves are still extensive. In the early years the gypsum was shipped out of a nearby jetty but for many years it has been railed out to the international port of Thevenard. SA produces 60% of Australia’s gypsum and most of that comes from Penong. The layers of gypsum here are nearly seven metres deep across the expanse of the salt lake. The railway from Thevenard was extended to Penong (73 kms) in 1924 and then a branch line to Kevin was completed in 1950. This is now the only railway line in operation on Eyre Peninsula since May 2019 when Viterra grain handlers could not reach an agreement with the track owners of Eyre Peninsula, Genesee & Wyoming Australia. The grain rail service was then terminated. The last grain train to Penong operated in 1997 but the line to Kevin gypsum mines still operates. Three round trips are made each day for most days of the week. Gypsum in exported to New Zealand and Asia from Thevenard. It is mainly used in fertilisers, plaster and cement production. After dredging from the salt lake it is bulk handled from train to ship. When the gypsum was first being mined the locals thought Penong would become the “Salt Lake City of the South” but without the Mormons! |
| 撮影日 | 2024-08-29 12:07:33 |
| 撮影者 | denisbin |
| タグ | |
| 撮影地 | |
| カメラ | SM-A505YN , samsung |
| 露出 | 1/3636 sec |
| 開放F値 | f/1.7 |