Quorn. The old 1916 railway station now starting point of the Pichi Richi railway which travels through Pichi Richi Pass to Port Augusta.

Quorn.

The first European squatters and pastoralists arrived in the Quorn area in the 1850s when White and Polhill established the Mount Arden run at what is now Quorn. But the town did not come into existence until 1875. It was named after Quorn in Leicestershire by Governor Jervois whose private secretary came from there. South Australian Railways chose the site for the town of Quorn and in 1878 the government sold the first blocks of land. In 1879 Quorn became the first terminus of the Great Northern Railway line from Port Augusta. Then in December 1881 the first trains from Peterborough via Hammond arrived in Quorn. The current station with its charming Dutch gables was built in 1916. However Quorn’s greatest period of importance as a railway centre was between 1917 and 1937 when it was the junction for both the western line to Perth and the northern line to Oodnadatta and Alice Springs( from 1929). This importance continued during World War II when over 400 people in the town were employed by the railways as it was a major troop stop over point with the Country Women’s Association providing over 1 million meals to the servicemen. The establishment of a new standard gauge railway to Marree and the Leigh Creek coal fields west of the Flinders Ranges in 1956 saw the town decline. The various hotels in the main street located to service the needs of travelling rail passengers then became a movie set for several films including: The Sundowners, Sunday Too Far Away, Robbery under Arms, The Shiralee and more recently Gallipoli.

 

Quorn’s early development was similar to that of many SA towns. One of the first structures (1878) was a flour mill for the wheat farmers built by Mr Cowan. Mr Dunn the wealthy flour miller of Mt Barker built a second three storied flour mill in 1879. It was converted to a motel in the 1960s and is now a backpacker’s accommodation centre. Other early buildings were the Austral Hotel (1878), the Criterion Hotel built in 1881 and the Transcontinental Hotel in 1878. The first National Bank opened in 1878, along with the Post Office, the Court House (1879) and Matthews Emporium (1886). The first church in town was a Methodist Church in 1880, followed by the Anglican (1880 replaced in 1897), Catholic (1883), the Salvation Army Hall in 1884(now a gallery) and the Lutheran Church in 1890. Three years after its founding, Quorn had a population of 540 and was the 19th largest town north of Adelaide! A reservoir was made for the railways and the town. Other important public town buildings were the Institute (1881) and the Town Hall (1907). A school started soon after the founding of the town and in 1909 it became a Higher Primary School and then in 1914 it became a High School. It was the first high school in the north of SA. Quorn continued to grow in importance once the railway was extended from Quorn through to Oodnadatta in 1891.

 

Pichi Richi Railway.

In 1878 work began on constructing the great Northern railway from Port Augusta through Pichi Richi

Pass in the Flinders Ranges towards Quorn. In December 1881 a railway line was extended from Peterborough (then Petersburg) via Carrieton and Hammond to Quorn. This then provided a rail link between Adelaide/Port Adelaide and Port Augusta. The Great Northern Railway was extended from Quorn to Hawker and then Maree in 1883 and eventually Oodnadatta in 1891.It was then extended to Alice Springs in 1929 by the Commonwealth but although the Commonwealth promised a railway to Darwin when SA gave up its Northern Territory in 1911 the Commonwealth never built a railway via the Flinders Ranges to Darwin. But the Commonwealth did build another railway which was promised to Western Australia in 1901 as a condition of WA joining the Commonwealth of Australia. Work started on a railway across the Nullarbor from Port Augusta to Kalgoorlie in 1911 with it being completed in 1917. So from 1917 the Pichi Richi railway line conducted trains to Perth. This ceased in 1937 when a new direct railway line was completed from Adelaide to Port Augusta via the Adelaide Plains and from Port Pirie along the coast to Port Augusta. The Pichi Richi railway then lost much of its traffic but it still had the Ghan travelling up to Alice Springs once or twice a week. When the Great Northern Railway from Hawker to Marree was closed in 1957 the Ghan service used the new Leigh Creek railway line which connected at Leigh Creek to Marree and Oodnadatta. In 1972 the section from Stirling North through the Pichi Richi to Quorn also closed. The section from Peterborough to Quorn had closed in 1969. It was then that the Pichi Richi Railway was established by volunteers for a tourist service. The only town along the Pichi Richi Railway is Stirling North. It was originally called Minchin Wells as there were good water springs there. Local Aboriginal people camped there because of the water supply and in the 1850s the Sub-Protector of Aborigines Mr. Minchin met Aboriginal people there. All the bullock teams and drays heading into the Flinders Ranges or the Willochra Plains or to Horrocks Pass stopped at Minchin Wells for water. A stand pipe in the centre of the town was used to water stock and people. Camel teams left from here for Alice Springs and the north, and eventually trains stopped here for water for their steam engines once the Pichi Richi Pass railway was completed in 1879. The town was surveyed and laid out in 1859 on land taken from the leasehold of Robert Barr Smith and his brothers-in-law Sir Thomas Elder and Edward Stirling. Hence the name officially became Stirling North rather than Minchin Wells. About this time the first hotel opened in Stirling North, the John Bull Inn. Stirling North has primarily been a transportation centre with a water supply! More recently it has had the new Port Augusta Gaol in its vicinity. The original Port Augusta Goal opened at Stirling North around 1862.

 

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