Roebourne Roots

FRANCIS Thomas Gregory regarded the Roebourne area as prime pastoral land good enough to also grow cotton on. The townsite on Ngarluma country was gazetted on August 17, 1866. Roebourne residents had already seen a century come and go by the time Karratha was gazetted in 1969. StreetWise chronicles Roebourne’s rise and fall in ‘50 Years of Boom, Bust & Red Dog – The Life & Times of Karratha City’.

THE oldest town in the North West, historic Roebourne became, “the administration and social hub of the isolated little settlement 1900km north of Perth”. In 1877 Roebourne recorded a population of, “428 whites, 78 women, over 600 aboriginal workers including station hands, almost 1000 Asians”, most of whom were Malays employed on local vessels.

People attended social and sporting events such as the Roebourne Races, held as early as 1866, a boat regatta and sports day at Cossack, held for the first time in 1875. Gold from Nullagine, discovered in 1878, and the surrounding tin and copper mines, also contributed to Roebourne’s prosperity in the 1880s and 1890s.

In 1971, the area of the shire (9440 square kilometres), included Roebourne, Cossack, Whim Creek, Point Samson, Wickham, Karratha and Dampier and the stations Karratha, Mardie, Mt Welcome, Woodbrook, Warambie, Pyramid, Sherlock, Mallina and Cooya Pooya (Wickham’s first permanent buildings were erected in 1970).

Planning for the construction of Karratha had begun in 1968 when land was excised from Karratha pastoral station, taken up in 1865 by Dr Thomas Baynton, a member of the Denison Plains Association.

Karratha became the administrative centre for the Shire of Roebourne in 1975 when Shire offices were relocated to Welcome Road in Karratha. Elections for new councillors were held in May 1978.

Details at www.streetwisemedia.com.au.