Populating the Mid North: a History of Settlement

Peterborough, on the Barrier Highway and well east of the Southern Flinders Ranges, is a substantial regional centre.

Peterborough, then Petersburg, has always been known as the railway centre and the article below describes its early days very well.

18 February 1914

PETERSBURG.

THE CAPITAL OF THE NORTH-EAST.

A DIP INTO HISTORY.

SPLENDID RECORD OF PROGRESS

(By our Special Reporter.)

The expansion of Petersburg, a town that has been aptly dubbed by his Excellency the Governor, "the Capital of the North-East," has not been strikingly rapid until the last decade. Founded more as the result of a combination of fortuitous circumstances than by premeditated design, it has, with the assistance of its position at the junction of four important railways, made a name for itself throughout Australia.

Its fine main streets of asphalt, its handsome new buildings, imposing line of shops, and, more than anything else, its electric lighting system, which was inaugurated on Monday, give it the status of a town quite abreast with the times.

Forty years ago Petersburg was not thought of. In 1876 Mr. J. H. Koch, whose farm still runs into the town to the very railway-station boundary, bought section 216 from Mr. Peter Doecke, with the object of farming there until he might retire to more comfortable parts. He had no thought that with the passage of years portion of his farm would give place to one of the two principal railway stations in South Australia.

One of the first proposals was that the narrow-gauge line, which had been built from Hamley Bridge through Brinkworth to Gladstone, should be continued through Jamestown and Yongala direct to Orroroo, and onward to Port Augusta, without touching Petersburg. That is, according to the réminiscences of several old residents of the district who knew Yongala before Petersburg had begun to spring up among the wheat fields, and who later looked upon what is now the junction township as a sort of suburb of Yongala.

Anyone who knows the two places will realise how the "suburb" has expanded and completely eclipsed the "metropolis." Yongala now has few pretensions beyond what a rural centre upon the railwav might be expected to have, but Petersburg has become a populous town and the hub of all the surrounding districts. Its business extends to Cockburn along one line of railway, to Laura in the opposite direction, northward to Hawker, and southward to Hallett.

Swarming with Kangaroos.

I had the pleasure of a few minutes' chat with Mr. Koch on Tuesday. "I came here in August, 1876," he said. "It was a wild place and kangaroo were swarming as the rabbits are now. Occasionally a swagman looked in but my neighbors were far away. Did I know there would be a big railway junction and township here? No, I simply proposed to farm. My farmhouse was about the only one here then, but three years afterwards the railway surveyors came from Jamestown and Terowie almost simultaneously. The first train I remember ran from Jamestown to Orroroo by way of Petersburg, but it was not long before the Terowie route was the established one between Adelaide and the North. As soon as the township began to spring up, about 1880, I named it Petersburg, after Peter Doecke. My house was built by Mr. Doecke. I recollect that the first building of any importance put up was Hall's Hotel, a single-storey building, on the site of the present Petersburg Hotel. When the Broken Hill line was built the town grew very quickly."

Mr. S. Kealey (town clerk), who was clerk of the Yongala District Council before Petersburg became a corporate town, explained that at one time it had been believed that Yongala was to be the junction of the Terowie and Jamestown lines, and a larger township than any then existing northern town was laid out, and blocks sold at high prices. Now blocks in Yongala, which had brought such considerable sums in the original sale, could be purchased for 30/- or £2 each. Petersburg had become the junction of the centre.

The Life-giving Railway.

Without the railway perhaps Petersburg would be non-existent still, but population follows the iron road, and therefore, possibly for that reason alone, Petersburg has become a highly important place.

No one is more ready to admit the value of the position of the town than are the townsfolk themselves. They are, however, making praiseworthy efforts to render the town independent, so that if by any possible chance the greater portion of the railway staff were withdrawn the business people would still be able to proceed.

Thus there is a butter factory which exports its produce to all parts of the State and overseas, a flour mill, two cordial manufactories, and two agricultural implement factories. Petersburg, it would seem, might easily become a manufacturing town, and the attempts enumerated above show that some, at least, of the residents realise that in secondary production is the solution of the problem how to secure the independence of the town from the railway.

It cannot remain a community of railway men; it must expand or it will decline. Through the station yard each day 36 heavily-freighted trains pass, mainly to and from the Barrier, and the line from Petersburg to Cockburn carries the heaviest traffic of any stretch of single track in the world. What would happen to Petersburg if the Barrier failed? The answer can be supplied by Petersburg people in what they do to make their town self-supporting.

Municipal Expansion.

The increase in population and the extension of the town have been far greater than any influx of railway men or increase of traffic could account for. There are 600 of the railway staff living in the town, but the population now totals 3,500. Therefore it can be seen that this prosperous community is moving for itself. In 1887, when the town was incorporated, the rates totalled £313. In 10 years the revenue of the corporation increased to £803, but the drought at the close of last century was a set-back, and by 1907 the amount was still slightly below £900. In 1911 the thousand had been passed, however, and the increase has been unprecedentedly rapid since then. In 1912 the rates were £1,340 and this year they will be £1,600. They have, indeed, nearly doubled in eight years.

Besides a large town hall and corporation offices, there are several well appointed hotels, a new State Savings Bank, and a branch of the English and Scottish Bank quite recently erected. There has been just added to the buildings of the down a bishop's palace, which cost £5,000, erected as the permanent residence of the Bishop of Port Augusta. Fully 30 private dwellings were erected in the town during the last 12 months, and the Railways Commissioner, in addition, put up 12 cottages for the staff.

Reminiscences.

At a social on Monday evening in connection with the switching on of the electric light several of the old residents spoke of the early days.

Councillor Bowering recalled the trip he had made over the line to Cockburn when it was opened. He also remembered how the district clerk of Yongala, of which Petersburg then was part, used to come to the embryo town, collect the rates, and go straight back to Yongala and plant trees there. (Laughter.)

Mr. H. Richards (chairman of the District Council or Coglin), after listening to several speeches, in which Petersburg people modestly stated what they had done, admitted that "nothing in-the Coglin district could come within coo-ee of the Petersburg main street." He was a "sheepy man," though, and he flung it at the Petersburg shopkeepers - who had to admit inferiority in sheep-raising - that he had "come in and taken the championship at the show."

Councillor Jamieson said Petersburg might go slowly, but it went surely. He contrasted the railway-station of to-day with that of the early days. "Thirty-three years ago," he said, "I brought a load of bark to the station. There were a station master and two porters there then, and the stationmaster (Mr. Short) said he was glad to have the stuff, as it would give, his staff something to do." (Laughter). Counc cillor Jamieson might have added that the stationmaster he referred to is now the Railways Commissioner of Western, Australia (Mr. J. T. Short).

The Eternal Question.

Everybody in the town seems to be oppressed by the fear that the Government will fail to provide an adequate water supply for Petersburg. They have been urging upon the Government for 20 years that action should be taken without delay, but still their hopes seem as far as ever from realisation. Though they are not engineers they have made suggestion upon suggestion, but before each proposal some apparently insuperable difficulty has arisen.

The strange thing is that the town on the northern side of the railway in the rainy season is often menaced by floods, and the electric light power station had to be built high up above the ground level so that the winter inundations would not interfere with the machinery.

Naturally, the residents thought that the flood waters should be conserved, "but," said one gentleman, "Mr. Bayer was the lion in the path, and when we were pressing the scheme home the partial drought began, and there was no heavy rain for three winters." So the floodwater scheme is pigeonholed pending the time when the streets will be awash again, though the three years' drought has rather weakened the conviction of the advocates of the scheme.

The late Hon. T. Price, it is said, promised that bores should be put down to search for artesian or sub-artesian supplies, but the Government stipulated that the town should pay part of the cost of the work, whereas "the town" considered that as the Government had provided water supplies for other places they should do the exploring for Petersburg.

Anyway, Petersburg is on high land - 1,800 ft. above sea level - and the Government Geologist has slight hopes that underground supplies will be found there. A scheme was mooted for impounding floodwater in Hennig's Lagoon, near Ucolta, but there again, when the discussion was in progress, the floods were few and far between.

It was suggested that water might be pumped from wells or from the Murray, but the Murray is 70 miles away, and both schemes would probably be too costly. The country between the river and the junction town is used mainly for grazing, and there would be no consumers on the pipe line to reduce the cost of the undertaking.

So Petersburg seems to be "up against it," as a resident said. But the question arises whether the residents should be left to solve the problem themselves, or whether it is not the province of the Government.

Some people in Petersburg have been buying water since November, 1912, and carters are retailing the precious fluid at 2/6 a hundred gallons. Surely in a town of 3,500 inhabitants, and at the biggest railway centre outside the metropolis - the railway dams, by the way, are leaky and nearly dry - this state of things should not be allowed to continue. It is the duty of engineers to overcome difficulties. It is not too much to demand that the Hydraulic Engineer and his staff should at all events exhaust their skill and knowledge in an endeavor to provide this important town with water. The rainfall at Petersburg is too uncertain for a growing town to depend upon supplies in underground tanks, caught from the roofs during showers, which may or may not be frequent.