Tennant Creek (Warumungu: Jurnkkurakurr) is a town located in the Northern Territory of Australia.
Tennant Creek (Warumungu: Jurnkkurakurr) is a town located in the Northern Territory of Australia. It is the seventh largest town in the Northern Territory, and is located on the Stuart Highway, just south of the intersection with the western terminus of the Barkly Highway. At the 2016 census, Tennant Creek had a population of approximately 3,000, of which more than 50% (1,536) identified themselves as indigenous.The town is approximately 1,000 kilometres south of the territory capital, Darwin, and 500 kilometres north of Alice Springs. It is named after a nearby watercourse of the same name, and is the hub of the sprawling Barkly Tableland — vast elevated plains of black soil with golden Mitchell grass, that cover more than 240,000 square kilometres. Tennant Creek is also near well-known attractions including the Devils Marbles, Mary Ann Dam, Battery Hill Mining Centre and the Nyinkka Nyunyu Culture Centre.
The Barkly Tableland runs east from Tennant Creek towards the Queensland border and is among the most important cattle grazing areas in the Northern Territory. Roughly the same size as the United Kingdom or New Zealand, the region consists largely of open grass plains and some of the world's largest cattle stations. It runs as far south as Barrow Creek, past Elliott to the north and west into the Tanami Desert.
The region encompasses the junction of two great highways, the Barkly and the Stuart, also known as the Overlander and Explorer's Ways. The Overlander's Way (Barkly Highway) retraces the original route of early stockmen who drove their cattle from Queensland through the grazing lands in the Northern Territory.
History
The Warumungu people have lived in the region surrounding Tennant Creek for thousands of years. The traditional name for the creek north of where the town is now located is Jurnkkurakurr, although it is now used to refer to the area of the township as well. The first European explorer to pass through the region was John McDouall Stuart in 1860, on his unsuccessful first attempt to cross the continent from south to north. He named a creek to the north of town after John Tennant, a financier of his expedition and a pastoralist from Port Lincoln, South Australia, in gratitude for the financial help Tennant had provided for Stuart's expeditions across Australia.
The Australian Overland Telegraph Line, that once allowed electronic communication between southern Australian cities and London, was constructed in the 1870s and forged a corridor through the middle of the continent that the Explorer's Way and Ghan train now travel. A temporary building for a telegraph repeater station was erected near the watercourse of Tennant Creek in 1872. Two years later, the solid stone buildings of the Tennant Creek Telegraph Station that remain on the site today, were completed by the occupants of the station. This is one of the four remaining original telegraph stations in Australia. Tennant Creek was the site of Australia's last gold rush during the 1930s and at that time was the third-largest gold producer in Australia. The Tennant Creek Telegraph Station remained an isolated outpost until that time.
Gold was discovered in the ranges three miles north of the current town area in 1926 by J Smith Roberts In 1927 Charles Windley, a telegraph operator, found gold on what would become Tennant Creek's first mine, The Great Northern. Australia's last great Gold Rush did not commence, however, until after Frank Juppurla,a local Indigenous man, took gold to telegraph operator Woody Woodruffe in December 1932. The population quickly grew to about 600, 60 of whom were women and children. "Battery Hill", overlooking the town of Tennant Creek, is the site of one of the last two operating ten-head stamp batteries, a Government owned ore crushing machine.
The town of Tennant Creek was located 12 km south of the watercourse because the Overland Telegraph Station had been allocated an 11 km reserve. Local legend offers a different explanation for the town's location. In 1934 Joe Kilgarriff from Alice Springs built the Tennant Creek hotel on the eastern side of the telegraph line, the building supplies being delivered on the first commercial journey of the AEC Roadtrain from Alice Springs.The pub still exists and is a historic monument to the early days.
Cecil Armstrong was one man who made a contribution to the early development of Tennant Creek. He arrived in April
1935 and began baking bread the next day. In 1937 he built Armstrong's bakery and cafe where he lived and worked for more than twenty years as baker and cafe proprietor. The building still stands today, albeit under a different guise. Cecil's telephone number was simply the number 1 and his Post Office box was also number 1.
Another important contributor to Tennant life was Mrs Weaber, wife of the blind owner of the Rising Sun Mine, one of the richest gold mines in the district before World War II. A devout Catholic, Mrs Weaber paid for the old church at Pine Creek to be transported to Tennant Creek plank by wooden plank, thereby establishing the Tennant Creek Catholic Church. Mrs Weaber also started the Tennant Creek Christmas tree event, when in the early 1930s she held a party at her husband's gold mine and gave every child on the gold field a present. Mrs Weaber's generosity continues into the present day. Every year the town erects a public Christmas tree and every child, local or visitor, is given a present. The Weaber family left Tennant Creek in 1940 following a series of personal family tragedies. They sold the lease to what would become Tennant's richest post war mine, Nobles Nob, before they realised its potential. Nobles Nob was named after Jack Noble, an old friend of the Weaber family from the days when they all lived in the Kimberley Region of Western Australia.
Gold Mining was all but shut down in Tennant Creek in 1942. The only mine to remain operational was a large mine with its own crushing plant. During World War II, the Australian Army set up the 55th Australian Camp Hospital near Tennant Creek. The Royal Australian Air Force utilised Tennant Creek Airfield as an emergency landing ground.
The town today is situated on a stretch of the Stuart Highway known as Paterson Street. As it is a regional
centre, it contains government services and local business and also has a developing tourist centre. There are a
number of restaurants and tourist activities to complement its friendly relaxed lifestyle. The people of Tennant Creek enjoy modern facilities including reserves, sporting venues, galleries and a civic hall. It is also home to Australia's premier go-karting event, held on a street circuit through the town.
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