Snowtown

History

The settlement of Snowtown by non-Indigenous Australians initially grew up around a railway station on the Brinkworth-Wallaroo line. Located on what is traditionally the land of the Kaurna, an Aboriginal people, the first pioneers arrived sometime between 1845 and 1869 due to the [https://www.snowtownmuseum.org/captain-john-ellis rapid expansion of grazing], then farming to the north of the area. Baillière's South Australian gazetteer and road guide, published in 1866, contains a brief description of "Hummock's Run" located north of Port Wakefield. This farmland, according to the publication, contained the farming stations of Barunga, Bumbunga and Wokurna and consisted of "salt lakes and lagoons, dense scrub, with mallee, pine and bushes, grassy plains and saltbush, well grassed spurs and hills, with oaks and wattle on the Broughton River." The hill to the east of Snowtown, Black Point Hill (and the nearby Black Point Lagoon) gave its name "Black Point" to the area by 1856 before Snowtown was established in 1878. This permanent waterhole and scrub-covered hill were then known as territory occupied by aboriginals, but claimed by Paddy Gleeson, founder of Clare as his 'Black Point Run'. From 1862, and 1863 and well before 1870 settlers and graziers campaigned for better transport routes from Black Point to Kadina for easier freight transport of wheat and wool. By 1867 a Parliamentary Enquiry produced a Report recommending the Clare to Wallaroo railway be built for a cost of £144.15s. Only with the arrival in 1870 of Robert Barr Smith at the Hummocks Run, did the surveyors immediately arrive in February 1870, and then, first a paved road (1874), and later a railway (1878) get built from Kadina to Barunga (now Barunga Gap), a location on the Western side of the…

Geography

Snowtown is situated approximately 7 kilometres east of Barunga Gap, a cleft between the Barunga and Hummocks ranges. The excess rainfall from these hills collects in Lake Bumbunga, directly south of the township, and in a trail of smaller lakes stretching north of the town to Lake View near the main highway and railway line. Beyond the eastern edge of the township is the Snowtown Golf Course and a swampy region populated by saltbush and other salt-tolerant flora. Snowtown has a warm Mediterranean climate with average summer temperatures around 30 °C and winter temperatures around 16 °C. The average annual rainfall is , most of which falls in the winter months. }}

Most-observed species

• Pygmy Bluetongue Lizard

  Tiliqua adelaidensis (Peters, 1863) · Squamata
  106
• House Sparrow

  Passer domesticus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  48
• Australian Kestrel

  Falco cenchroides Vigors & Horsfield, 1827 · Aves
  44
• European Starling

  Sturnus vulgaris Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  41
• Crested Pigeon

  Ocyphaps lophotes (Temminck, 1822) · Aves
  34
• Little Raven

  Corvus mellori Mathews, 1912 · Aves
  32
• Australian Magpie

  Gymnorhina tibicen (Latham, 1802) · Aves
  31
• Willie-wagtail

  Rhipidura leucophrys (Latham, 1802) · Aves
  31

Most recent

• M 4.3 — 2024-04-17
  8 km ENE of Jamestown, Australia
• M 4.4 — 2020-05-14
  15 km WSW of Burra, Australia
• M 3.3 — 2018-07-09
  9 km NNW of Jamestown, Australia
• M 4.1 — 2011-09-04
  16 km SW of Peterborough, Australia
• M 3.1 — 2008-12-04
  17 km ESE of Crystal Brook, Australia
• M 2.7 — 2007-08-03
  23 km SSE of Burra, Australia