Mintaro

Mintaro is a historic town in the eastern Clare Valley, east of the Horrocks Highway, about 126 kilometres (78 miles) north of Adelaide, South Australia.

Mintaro is a historic town in the eastern Clare Valley, east of the Horrocks Highway, about 126 kilometres (78 miles) north of Adelaide, South Australia. The town lies at the south-eastern corner of the Hundred of Clare, within the Clare Valley wine region. Established in 1849, Mintaro is situated on land which was bought originally by Joseph and Henry Gilbert, which they sub-divided into 80 allotments.

Mintaro was originally intended as a stopping and resting place for the bullock teams carting copper ore from the Burra mine to Port Wakefield. By 1876 the population was recorded as 400. Mintaro continued to develop as a rural service centre during the 1870s and early 1880s, when pastoral and agricultural activities boomed in the state's mid north. After 1930, there was a general decline in rural populations and little development took place within the town for several decades.

The Mintaro district includes prominent Martindale Hall and Kadlunga, two large pastoral properties. Known for its high quality, Mintaro slate is produced from what is believed to be the oldest continuing operating quarry in Australia. Although Mintaro is primarily an agricultural community, tourism plays an increasingly important role. Due to its historical and cultural significance, the entire town of Mintaro was declared a State Heritage Area for South Australia in 1984. In recent years, Mintaro has become a popular tourist destination and had increased building restoration and residential development.

The original inhabitants of the Clare Valley were the Indigenous Ngadjuri people, who spent thousands of years in the area before European settlement. It is believed that they had major camping sites at Clare and Auburn, including the region now known as Mintaro.The Mintaro district was explored by Europeans in mid-1839, first by John Hill, and then by Edward John Eyre. The area north of Gawler was officially opened by a series of special surveys in the early 1840s. Land in the Barossa and Clare Valleys was quickly taken up. The first settler in Mintaro was pastoralist James Stein who from 1841 held occupation licences for extensive sheep runs stretching from Mount Horrocks through Farrell Flat to the Burra district. Stein subsequently established his homestead on a tributary of the Wakefield River, in a valley beneath Mount Horrocks, about three kilometres west of present Mintaro.

With the discovery of copper at Kapunda in 1844, and then Burra in 1845, the area became attractive to both settlers and investors. In 1848 the Patent Copper Company established the 'Gulf Road' between the Burra Mine and Port Wakefield, along which bullock teams carried copper ore for shipment to Adelaide. Between 1848 and 1851 several villages were established along the Gulf Road to take advantage of the trade generated by the bullock traffic. The towns were established about 9.0 miles (14.5 km) apart because that was the distance a bullock team could travel in a day. Among the first of these towns was Mintaro.Mintaro is situated on land which was bought originally by Joseph and Henry Gilbert. They divided sections of the surrounding land into 80 allotments in 1849. The village of Mintaro was originally intended as a stopping and resting place for the bullock teams (muleteers) carting the copper ore from the mine to the port, and returning with coal and supplies. The first allotments surveyed and sold in Mintaro faced the Gulf Road (now Burra Street). As a result, Mintaro's early layout reflects the copper route, with streets aligned at 45 degrees to the north-south grid of the surveyed sections and government roads.

The Magpie and Stump Hotel, at the entrance to the village, was first licensed (as the Mintaro Hotel) in December 1850, though it may have been operating earlier. The period from 1850-1860 was a prosperous one. A large proportion of the town's buildings date from this time and are located on the original subdivision. Significant slate deposits were discovered in the early 1850s by a local farmer and the Mintaro Slate Quarry opened in 1854. By the early 1860s Mintaro slate was famous. By the early 1880s there were about 50 men employed at the quarries.The town's development was set back when the railway from Adelaide to Gawler was opened in 1857, and the copper teams were re-routed through Saddleworth and Riverton. However, the slate quarries were being expanded at this time, and a flour mill was built in 1858. Mintaro developed as a service centre for the surrounding farming districts, which provided supplies for the mining townships at Kapunda and Burra. Over the next decade the population grew, and in 1866 the village expanded to an adjacent section.

During the 1860s and 1870s public buildings appeared in the town, including a school, and a substantial number of Irish Catholics settled in and around Mintaro. In 1876 the population was recorded as 400. The Burra mine closed in 1877, but Mintaro continued to develop as a rural service centre during the 1870s and early 1880s, when pastoral and agricultural activities boomed in the state's mid north.Mintaro railway station (renamed Merildin in 1918) was built in 1870 when the northern railway line was extended from Roseworthy to Burra. It is situated about 7 kilometres east of the township. Mintaro was well placed to continue as an agricultural service centre despite the closure of the Burra mines. The surrounding farming districts of the fertile Gilbert Valley were able to reap the rewards of excellent wheat and wool prices during South Australia's rural boom of the 1870s and early 1880s. This wealth was reflected in two large pastoral properties near Mintaro. Both Martindale Hall, built in 1879-80, and Kadlunga homestead, purchased in 1881 by Sir Samuel Way, reflected a way of life similar to that of English nobility. Mintaro, like rural village counterparts in England, provided these properties with a ready source of local labour.Live hare coursing was conducted from 1884 to 1986 (102 years) by the Mintaro Greyhound Coursing Club. Following passage of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 106 of 1985, live hare coursing stopped, but drag lure coursing continued until 1997, when it permanently ceased.The early 20th century, until the 1929 Depression, was a relatively prosperous period for the rural lower and mid north regions. After 1930, there was a general decline in rural populations. The continuing function of the slate quarry helped Mintaro survive, but little development took place within the town for several decades.Because of its rich natural and cultural heritage, Mintaro was designated as a State Heritage Area on 20 September 1984. The designation of a State Heritage Area is intended to ensure that changes to and development within the Mintaro area are managed in a way that the area's cultural significance is maintained. During the latter part of the 20th century some adaptation of historic buildings occurred to serve a growing demand in tourism and, in recent times, there has been increased residential development.

There are a range of theories around the naming of the township of Mintaro. Once thought to be of Spanish origin, Mintaro is now thought to be Aboriginal.In his 1892 booklet, Our Pastoral Industry, Sir F. W. Holder stated that the local Ngadjuri word "Mintadloo"may have over time degenerated or morphed into Mintaro. This was given credence by pioneering Mid North pastoralist, Thomas Goode, who stated, "the blacks called the area 'mintadloo' but I don't know what it means." Later, South Australian historian, Geoff Manning, citing anthropologist Norman Tindale's work, attributed the town's name to the local word mintinadlu (also rendered Mintadloo or Minta - Ngadlu) meaning 'netted water'. This is thought to be a reference to the local Indigenous practice of using nets to trap emus, kangaroos and other creatures in the area for food.In contrast to Holder, Goode and Manning, according to a 1908 newspaper article, the name Mintaro is of Spanish origin, meaning 'camping place' or 'resting place'. This was based on the fact that Spanish-speaking mule drivers (then known as muleteers) from Uruguay, Chile and Argentina transported copper ore from the Burra Mine to Port Wakefield in the mid-1850s. The muleteers used Mintaro as a resting place. The town's early history records show that as many as 100 Spanish-speaking mule drivers passed through and rested in the town each day. Between 1853 and 1857 mule teams driven by muleteers were a common sight in the area. However, with the exception of Río Mantaro (a long river running through the central region of Peru), there does not appear to be any words similar to Mintaro in the Spanish language.Whatever the true derivation of its name, the district was called Mintara in some of the earliest advertisements. Born in 1849, cricketer Frederick Muir listed his birthplace as Mintara, Australia. The Township of Mintaro name first appeared in an advertisement on 6 November 1849. The town is pronounced "min-TAIR-oh" by the Clare Valley community.