ESPERANCE

HEMA Map reference 75/G13

33° 51' 40" S 121° 53' 27" E

Statistics

Caravan Park

Services

Attractions

Museums, Pink lake, Cape LeGrand, Bandy Creek Harbour, Great Ocean Drive Twilight Cove, Cape Arid, Stokes Inlet National Park, Ten Mile Lagoon, Salmon Beach, Wylie Bay, Quagi Beach, Orleans Bay, Tommy Windich's grave at Port Authority Park, Cannery arts centre, Tanker jetty, Esperance Aquarium, Wind farm, Helm's Arboretum, Recherche Archipelago, Mongingup Lake, Kepawari wetland.

Buildings of note

Old Dempster Homestead, Dempster St. 1863, Old telegraph station located at Israelite Bay 200km east 1896, Thomas River station 115km east 1870s.

Calendar of events

February Esperance Cup March (Biennial): Festival of the wind. September: Wildflower show. October: Annual show. November: Patchwork and quilting exhibition. Certain Sundays: Village markets.

Description

Pieter Nuyts sailed past the area in 1627 on the Gulde Zeepaard (Golden Seahorse). Dutch records state the following about the exploration:

'In the year 1627, the South Coast of the Great South land was accidentally discovered by the ship Gulde Zeepaard.'

On September 28th 1791 the French ships L’Esperance and Recherche, left Brest on an expedition to explore the south coast of Australia. They were caught in a storm off the Australian coast during December 1792 and sought shelter in a bay that was named after the ship L’Esperance. The French explored the coast until January 3rd 1793 naming many features including Cape Le Grand (named after Citizen Legrande.) The ships than sailed east to Tasmania.

Mathew Flinders mapped the coastline in 1802 and named both Thistle Cove and Lucky bay. Edward John Eyre explored the area in 1841 after crossing the Nullarbor.

The region was known by the Aboriginal people as Gabi-Kylie, which is supposed to mean ‘the place where water lies down like a boomerang.’
 

A popular area with whalers and sealers in the early years, the coastline was dotted with temporary settlement sites that these men used during the off season. There was early conflict with local Aborigines as the whalers were prone to kidnapping Aboriginal women and much hatred was generated due to this practice.

In 1848 J.S. Roe led an expedition to the area.

The area was settled in 1864 (one source quotes 1863 but we believe 1863 is the date the Dempster Brothers first explored the area and the later date is the date they arrived with stock. The leases were granted in 1866.) by the Dempster brothers who brought sheep, cattle and horses down from Northam. They took up over 300,000 acres and were encouraged by new liberal land regulations that allowed land to be taken up and worked rent free for 4 years.
 

In April 1870 an expedition across the Nullarbor to Adelaide, led by John Forrest, stopped briefly at the Dempster property before continuing on what was a very successful mission reaching Adelaide in August. Forrest said of the Esperance plains: 'If water could be procured on the table land, it would be the finest pastoral district of Western Australia.' Prophetic words as it turned out.

Soon after Forrest's departure, Campbell Taylor established a farm called Lynburn that was the first settlement east of Esperance.

In 1876 the telegraph line reached the area and a repeating station was built.

In 1879 a police station was also erected and one of the first investigations was into the murder of John Moir by two natives. Moir had arrested the two men in connection with thefts but they had assistance is getting their chains off and killed Moir when his attention was elsewhere.

The following year John Dunn was also murdered and the culprits were also captured and sent to Albany for trial.

In 1890 William Moir found gold in the area but little came of it until more gold was found further north with May Bell, Great Dundas and Scotia being some of the rich outcrops discovered.

When gold was discovered around Kalgoorlie in the 1890s, Esperance became an important port with many prospectors passing through on their way to riches or ruin. The route from Esperance to Coolgardie was quicker and easier than that from Perth and William Moir was one of the first to see the possibilities this offered. He started bringing in goods for transport to the booming goldfields.

The town was named after the French frigate L’Esperance. It was gazetted in 1893. (Esperance is also said to be the Dutch word for hope.) By 1894 the first school had been established and the first jetty followed in 1895. In the same year the Esperance Chronicle began printing newspapers and the following year the Esperance Times set up in opposition. A brewery opened in 1896 but a rail link from Perth to the goldfields was completed and took much of the business away from Esperance as it was now easier to travel by rail all the way to Kalgoorlie.

A railway to Salmon Gums was completed in 1925 and two years later the link to Norseman was finished meaning that a rail link now went all the way to Kalgoorlie and from there to Perth but by this time Esperance had reverted to a quiet rural community.

The area was initially opened up for farming in 1912 but the soil proved to be very poor and by 1935 more than three quarters of the farms had been abandoned. Many people saw the area's potential and an agricultural research station was developed and the first experimental crops sown in 1950.

An American company negotiated a deal with the Government to open up 1.5 million acres but when the first crop failed in 1957 they began to hand back or sell land and eventually control passed to another company.

With the introduction of fertilisers and trace elements in the 1950s the land around Esperance became hugely productive and from 1950 to 1964 the number of farms increased from just 40 to 570. Farming remains one of the main stays of the region.
 

In 1961 a plan for a better and larger port was proposed and this was to bring even more commercial possibilities to the region. Unfortunately for the town's residents it was also to bring lead poisoning to the town in 2006 when dust from lead shipments contaminated water supplies etc. due to inefficient handling.

The area around the town has some of the most spectacular beaches you will ever see. People rave about Cable Beach in Broome, but is does not compare to the beaches between Esperance and Orleans Bay.

I would even go as far as to say that the area includes the most beautiful stretch of coastline in W.A.

There are some good campsites near Esperance (within about 70-90Kms each side) Some are CALM sites, others like Quagi are council sites. All are very nice.

Tall tales and true: A load of bull.

One of the most valuable Santa Gertrudis breeding bulls in the country was owned by Orleans Farms. The bull lived in a paddock next to a sheep dip and one one occasion after plentiful rain the sheep dip overflowed.

The bull drank the contaminated water and died but long after his death he was still fathering many offspring. This was because his sperm had been collected and stored for Artificial Insemination.