Clipper Ship 'City of Adelaide'

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By the end of 1872 the Yudanamutana Company was reorganised and was now known as the Blinman Consolidated Copper Mining Company of South Australia. However the mine only lasted until November 1873 when it was forced to wind up, after having raised copper to the value of $500,000. When the railway reached Parachilna in 1882, a new company reopened the mine and worked it until 1885 when falling copper prices again forced it to close. The cost of land transport and the shortage of water and fuel made copper mining a marginal enterprise in the Flinders Ranges.
Donkey Teams at Port Augusta Wharves
Donkey Teams delivering Wool to the Port Augusta Wharves, ca1900; Source SLSA; B26402

South Australia started to build its narrow-gauge Great Northern Railway in 1878, and it greatly reduced the difficulties of transport between the pastoral and mining areas of the Far North and their nearest sea-port at Port Augusta. It wound through Pichi Richi Pass and across the western plains, creating several new towns such as Hawker, Parachilna and Beltana at each temporary rail-head in turn, until it reached Marree in 1883. (Subsequently it was extended to reach Oodnadatta in 1891, but did not arrive at Alice Springs until 1929.)

Despite various droughts, the South Australian wheat industry continued to spread northward. The first 199 bags of wheat were shipped from Port Augusta to Adelaide in late 1877 and by early the next year wheat was bound for London.

The City of Adelaide continued to service both Port Adelaide and Port Augusta for nearly a quarter century from 1864 to 1887.

In colonial times the nation of Australia was "built on the sheep's back" and Australia's prosperity was dependent on sailing ships to deliver the sheep's wool to the overseas markets. The City of Adelaide is the last survivor of the wool clippers that carried South Australian wool from Port Adelaide and Port Augusta to the London Markets and is estimated to have exported 60,000 bales of South Australian wool.

'City of Adelaide' at Port Augusta
'City of Adelaide' at Port Augusta ca 1880, Source SLSA; B7752


(Partial source Flinders Ranges Research)

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