LAKE GRACE

HEMA Map reference 74/F7

33° 06' 13" S 118° 27' 56" E

Statistics

Caravan Parks

Caravan Park          08 9865 1263

Services

Attractions

Apex Park, Dingo Rock, Scenic Lookout, Peak Charles, Lake Grace, Mt. Madden, Inland Mission museum, White Dam reserve, White Cliffs.

Buildings of note

Unknown

Calendar of events

January: Australia Day Breakfast. June (bi-annual): Art 2 where exhibition.

Description

The area was first officially explored by John Septimus Roe in 1848. There were probably sandalwood cutters in the area before Roe passed some 30 kilometres east.

Edward Robinson is recorded as the first to take up a lease in the area in 1874 but there was no permanent settler here until 1907 (One source quotes Patrick McMahon as first settling here in 1908).

The nearby lake was named in 1910(?) by the district surveyor Marshall Fox (One source quotes F.S. Brockman as the surveyor but it appears Brockman was Surveyor General and Grace Brockman was his wife.), after Grace Brockman (Bussell).

There is another claim that the town was named after Stephen Grace who was speared in 1907 by Aborigines near the current site of Wiluna. As Lake Grace appears to have been on maps since 1906 this claim has been discounted. The anomaly here is that if it existed on maps from 1906 why is it recorded that Marshall Fox named it in 1910? So far we have no answer.

The Aboriginal name for the area was Pinowarring. Other names that were associated with the lake in the early years were: Kondenen, Wallerkin and Caudoblin.

By the middle of 1911 there were at least 17 selections taken up by settlers.

In the early years the settlers were sadly lacking in fresh vegetables and meat and as a result developed a type of scurvy known as Barcoo Rot.

There was no post office for mail delivery to start with, so a contractor came from Dumbleyung and camped overnight at the dam. Anyone wanting to see if he had any mail for them, or who had any to send, would arrive at the dam before the contractor left the next morning.

A local progress committee was started in 1912 and its first task was the establishment of a school. The school was erected in 1913 and the railway arrived in 1916, the same year the town site was gazetted.

In 1920 the first church was constructed and this was followed by a bakery, town hall and a number of other shops and private dwellings. Some of these buildings didn’t last long as three separate fires destroyed no fewer than six shops.

After a number of accidental deaths and injuries due in the main to horses and guns, there was a general push to get a hospital established in the town. The Australian Inland Mission (started by Rev. John Flynn) assisted and the hospital and mission opened in 1926.

In the same year a railway link with Newdegate (and hence other towns to the west) was opened and Lake Grace was no longer quite so isolated.

In 1957 gold was discovered in the area and a mine (known as Griffin’s Find) was established. The find was significant enough for mining to continue until the end of 1989.