Kondinin

History

The first European known to have visited the Kondinin area was Captain John Septimus Roe, Surveyor General of the Swan River Colony on his 1848–1849 expedition to examine the south coast. He encountered a group of Aboriginal people east of Nalyaring (near Brookton) who guided the expedition party to several water sources before leaving the party at Yeerakine (just south-east of Kondinin) as this was the limit of their territory. The lake and well nearby came to be known as Kondinin, although the meaning is unknown. In the early years, settlers occasionally encountered groups of Aborigines hunting possums. Although artifacts such as grinding stones and stone choppers have been found in the district, no signs of permanent occupation were found by early settlers other than the mia-mias built by "Europeanised" Aboriginal shepherds from Narrogin in the employ of Michael Brown. Brown, a businessman from Narrogin, took up large pastoral leases in the Kulin/Kondinin area in 1905. These and other leases in the area were terminated in 1909/1910 to allow the government to distribute the land for agricultural purposes. The town of Kondinin began life as a railway station on the railway line from Yilliminning to Kondinin, built from 1911 to 1915. The district around Kondinin was already settled when the government chose to construct a railway line here in 1911. The townsite was gazetted in 1915. In 1949 the bulk wheat bin in town and another at Notting, located about from Kondinin, were both filled after a good season with excellent yields in the area despite the recorded rainfall of the previous year being only .