The third point of the copper town triangle of 'Little Cornwall' at the top of the Yorke Peninsula was the first, in 1861, to be surveyed and served as the port for the export of ore and later for the grain produce of the area.
It is to the west of the mines, at the place on the coast where Captain Walter Hughes built a landing soon after copper was discovered on his Wallaroo Station near the present site of Kadina (see entry) in December 1859. In 1861, Hughes established a smelting works on the Wallaroo waterfront to process the ore from both the Wallaroo Mine (in fact situated just outside Kadina) and the Moonta Mine.
Wallaroo was the entry port for many of the Cornish families heading to the mines, but the town itself had a sizable Welsh population. The Welsh were renowned for their expertise in smelting and processing ores. A number of them came here from the copper-smelting town of Swansea in South Wales, and it was Welsh masons who were responsible for the huge square stack of Hughes Chimney at the smelter. Cornish-built stacks were round. Copper mining ceased in the 1920s due to a global slump in prices.
Wallaroo was one of the ports from which the majestic windjammers sailed in the days of the 'grain races' when, laden with wheat, they sped from the shores of South Australia to England. Five of the clippers which set sail from here won their races. The last square-rigged sailing ship left Wallaroo Bay in 1939,
Tall silos have now replaced the smelter stacks, and bulk carriers the windjammers. Wallaroo has become the main port for the export of wheat and barley and the import of phosphate rock. The latter is mixed with sulphuric acid to produce super-phosphate fertiliser. This industry grew up here to utilise the excess sulphur that was a by-product of the smelting works. Population 2460
HERITAGE AND NAUTICAL MUSEUM The whitewashed limestone building at the centre of this complex was Wallaroo's first post office and dates from 1865. It houses a display from the copper-smelting era, while in a nearby building the history of the port is explained by way of charts, old photographs, models of ships, documents, old record books and mementoes of the trading ketches that plied the waters of the gulfs.
BIRD ISLANDS CONSERVATION PARK Two low-lying islands off Wallaroo are protected in a conservation park as breeding grounds for sea birds.
Text: Readers Digest Australian Places 1993
Photographs: Roderick Eime
