No 21 Port Pirie

TOWNS, PEOPLE, AND THINGS WE OUGHT TO KNOW

PORT PIRIE: WONDER TOWN ON SPENCER GULF

Man's Triumph Over Nature

BY OUR SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE

NO. XXI.

The transition of Port Pirie from a wild, desolate swamp on the banks of a creek to a thriving young metropolis of 12,000 souls is one of the romances of our northern towns— perhaps the greatest romance. Years ago the whole country from Port Pirie to Crystal Brook was sold for £85. Today it would take millions to buy Port Pirie.

One morning recently I stood on the wharf at Port Pirie and let my eyes roam round. Beside me was the river where a steamer from the Baltic was unloading timber. A passenger boat had just arrived and was discharging her human freight. Ahead was the long curved line of big buildings which is Ellen street. Behind me the greatest lead smelters in the world belched smoke from a dozen huge chimneys. It was a scene of splendid activity.

Then the curtain of the years parted, and I saw Samuel's Creek of the early seventies— a wild, desolate stretch of mangrove swamp and muddy water, of churned up sand and straggly scrub; a lonely, dusty plain sweeping away to seeming infinity on one side, and to the blue-hazed Flinders Range on the other. And all this dreary country, hundreds of square miles of it, inhabited by — one man!

A more desperately hopeless proposition for a port surely never existed than Samuel's Creek of sixty years ago. Today Pirie is the largest town in South Australia, and the fourth port of the Commonwealth. If that is not romance: if Pirie is not a wonder town, then I do not know what it is.

The blacks called Pirie "Tarparrie" (muddy creek). That is just what it was. It was even too hopeless for the wandering aborigines. In turning Samuel's Creek into a busy modern town. Man performed a miracle.

In The Beginning

Can you imagine Port Pirie being s0ld for £85? It seems to be a ridiculous statement to make in 1932. Yet it is perfectly true. And Crystal Brook was included in the bargain. That is the price at which the original owners of the section, William Younghusband and Peter Ferguson, disposed of it to Matthew Smith and Emanuel Solomon in 1848. It was, of course, from this Solomon that the name Solomontown was derived.

Several times recently I have read statements by highbrow philosophers saying them is no such thing as luck. Don't you believe them. Life itself is luck— either good or bad. It's not a long, straight road on which you can read the signs miles ahead, but an undulating, tortuous lane, with something hidden round every turn. That's what makes Life so fascinating. No such thing as luck! What about the man who goes to bed a pauper, and wakes to find that some unknown relative has left him a millionaire? Or the depressed farmer who suddenly becomes an oil king? Or the man who wins a cool quarter of a million in a lottery? These things are rare —but they do happen. And if they're not luck, then I ask you to find a name for them.

This piece of philosophy has its origin in the story of Younghusband and Ferguson. I don't think either of them died worth much more than the proverbial bean. They were both hard workers— but they had no luck. Younghusband was an Englishman; Ferguson a Scotsman. The former arrived here in 1842, and the latter somewhere about the same time. They took up a big area of country in the north. It comprised 560 square miles. The "run" was called Crystal Brook, after a clear stream of water on the property. Over and over again I have told you of the struggles of the pioneers. These partners had more than their share of trouble. Nearly everything they did was wrong, or it went wrong. Fate seemed to be ever at their heels, deriding them and taunting them. The blacks stole their sheep or drought killed them. When you read that they sold out for £85 you can draw your own conclusions. You couldn't buy Port Pirie today under several millions!

There is an old police court record in existence which gives a vivid picture of the sort of thing which was common in sheep farming operations in the forties and the fifties. Peter Ferguson was giving evidence at Clare against seven blackfellows he had arrested for stealing his sheep.

"The shepherd at the camp station, three miles from the Brook," he said, "reported to me that the sheep at his station were rushed several times in the night of June 21, and some were lost. I got on their tracks near the station. I followed the tracks for eight miles and came to a native camp. I found twelve skins with our ear marks on them. I went on another five miles and found eight skins. A mile further I found a camp and eight wurlies. Each of the prisoners was killing a sheep. There were 34 sheep in a "yard." When I rode up all the blacks ran away, and Tommy (one of the prisoners) attempted to throw a spear at me."

Fancy riding through the bush for fourteen miles, knowing that at any moment a hostile savage might hurl a spear into you! That was the nature of the Port Pirie country in the forties — mud and mosquitoes at the port; niggers and death in the interior. I don't intend to tell you about the pastoral ups and down of this pair. But I ought to mention that this was the same William Younghusband who afterwards became a member of the Legislative Council, and was for several years Chief Secretary. He was also one of the chief actors in an historic bout of fisticuffs in the city with Dr. Moreton, of Gawler. He died in Rome from typhus while on a holiday. His partner, Ferguson, died at Kent Town in 1887.

One other circumstance concerning Younghusband should be mentioned. He was one of the promoters of the River Murray Steam Navigation Company, and helped Captain Cadell to win the £4,000 bonus offered by the Government for the inauguration of steam navigation on the big river.

Birth Of Pirie

In 1870 there was no Port Pirie. By 1873 some settlement had begun. But Crystal Brook was a thriving town when Pirie was only a scattered settlement of some half dozen souls. The first building was a caretaker's hut, the home of the man whose duty it was to watch the wool brought to "the creek" by bullock teams from the three neighboring stations — Bowman's (Crystal Brook), Hughes's (Booyoolee), and Reid's (Beetaloo). Two-plank jetties jutted out into the little stream to enable the wool to be loaded into a small ketch, which conveyed it to ships lying eight to ten miles off the creek. There was no thought in those days of making Pirie into a port, in the modern sense of the term. At high tide the flimsy little jetties were completely submerged. So hopeless did the locality seem that when the railway to the town was mooted there was long and bitter opposition in Parliament. A Select Committee was appointed, and the president of the Marine Board (Captain Ferguson), in giving evidence, emphatically described the river as "a little gutter." Today the "little gutter" ranks fourth in the ports of Australia! Romance! Of course it is.

By 1878 Pirie seems to have made considerable progress. The name had been changed from Samuel's Creek. The railway was under construction. In a dispatch to the Secretary of State for the Colonies (Earl Carnarvon), dated January 25, 1878, Governor Sir William Jervois wrote:—

"Five years ago there was not an inhabitant et Port Pirie; now it is a thriving place. Wharves are in course of construction, houses and flour mills springing up, and, the country in the neighborhood being rich, and adapted for the growth of cereals, and taken up by an agricultural population, a large trade in wheat has arisen, which cannot fail to render Port Pirie a place of considerable importance. At every station along the 45 miles of railway which have already been completed from it into the interior, tens of thousands of sacks of wheat were stacked ready for transport by railway to the port, where there were ships waiting for their freight, whilst waggons were pouring into the stations with fresh loads of grain from the country through which the railway runs."

Question Of Names

The "Samuel" after whom the creek was named before the present designation was conferred was Samuel Germein. He was master of the Waterwitch. He discovered the creek in 1840, while conveying stores to the head of the gulf for the explorer Eyre. From then on it appeared on the official maps as "Samuel's Creek." There is a widespread belief that Port Pirie was re-named after Sir John Pirie, Lord Mayor of London, and a director of the South Australia Company. Indirectly that is true. As a matter of fact, however, it was named after the schooner John Pirie (120 tons), which was the first vessel to navigate the creek. The schooner, though, bore the name of London's former chief magistrate. Early records of the port show the name variously spelt as "Pirie," "Peri," and "Perrie." My regret is that "Tarparrie" was not adopted.

The fact remains that Port Pirie bears the name of the municipalist who presided over the destinies of London about what time South Australia was still being carried round in its mother's arms. So does Pirie street, Adelaide. These facts moved me to look into the record of the man whom it was thought fit thus to honor.

Sir John Pirie was not a "great" man, using the adjective as applied to celebrities. You will find no record of him in the Public Archives the Public Library, encyclopaedias, old Who's Who, Dictionary of National Biography, or other sources whose business it is to chronicle the lives of the great or the would-be great. He seems to have been a very good alderman, and a capable Lord Mayor. But when you get down to tin tacks you cannot class him as other than one of those municipal meteors which flash across the sky of public life for a second, and then disappear into the obscurity from which it emerged, without leaving scarce a trace that it ever existed. Pirie was a self-made man. I admire him for that. The man who "gets there" after starting from down at-heel boots and patched pants is usually a better man than the chap who owes his position to his father's cheque book and weighty influence. The future Lord Mayor certainly had no great civic aspirations when, as a youth, he departed from his native town of Dunse (Berwick) at the beginning of last century, with pockets full of hope and confidence— but little else. I cannot give you the details of his career. I know they would be interesting if I could, because a man cannot enter the rough and tumble sea of life to emerge finally into the calm waters of prosperity without having thrilling experiences in the process. You may be sure Pirie had plenty. We next hear of him us one of the largest shipbrokers in London. He was an alderman of the city for many years. The day King Edward VII. was born Pirie became Lord Mayor. The day the infant was christened Pirie was given a baronetcy in honor of the event. Sir John died in 1870, a few years before Port Pirie came into existence, and the title became extinct.

Probably it was Pirie's connection with the South Australia Company which led to his name being so much honored in this state. But, unless I am gravely mistaken, he was never in Australia. Neither were many other people whose names are commemorated in our city streets.

Early Incidents

Look up Ellen street today, a striking modern curved thoroughfare lined by large and handsome buildings, and you will see a street of which any city might be proud. But if you had seen it in the early seventies it would have been either a mass of churned up sand, or else scarcely visible at all, for at high tide the water covered the street to a sufficient depth to enable children to paddle. Pirie was gazetted as a town in 1872. Charles Hope Harris surveyed it and laid it out. He gave it curved streets— a novelty in this part of the world. The streets were called after the family of the Surveyor-General of the day (Mr. G. W. Goyder) to whom we are indebted for Goyder's line of rainfall. The oldest part of Pirie is Solomon town. It was the site of the original town. In 1876 Pirie was incorporated as a town. The first mayor was Mr. Henry Warren.

How primitive conditions were in '76 may best be withered from this picture of an Anglican Church service. It was held in the bottling department of a wine store, which the previous day had probably witnessed some hectic scenes. The '"altar" was a beer barrel covered with a cloth. The congregation sat where they could on gin cases. Today nearly all denominations have handsome churches.

Mention of churches reminds me of the rather interesting history of the Methodist Church at Solomontown. When that section of Pirie was laid out by Emmanuel Solomon he reserved a niece of land for the erection of a synagogue. No Jewish temple was ever raised, however. When Solomon died he left the block to whichever church was the first to claim it. The Bible Christians did s0, and owned the property until they merged into the Methodists, when it naturally passed into the possession of the bigger denomination.

I told you that Ellen street was subject to tidal inundations. Mr. Nicholas Simon was one of the earliest pioneers. He bought a piece of land on which to build a store. When he went to look for it he had to take a boatman with him. Two feet of water covered the site. The boatman marked the place by jabbing an oar into it.

The first white child born at Port Pirie was the late Mr. Robert Alfred French. For some years the distinction was disputed by Mr. Fred Grey, who claimed it for himself. The controversy, finally, was settled in favor of Mr. French.

Influence Of The Smelters

I saw the Smelters. When you go to Pirie on a mission like mine you can not overlook them. The Smelters are Port Pirie: Port Pirie is the Smelters. It was from their inauguration in 1889 on quite a small scale that the town received the impetus it has never lost. Money has been poured into these now huge works — the largest of their kind in the world— and money has poured out of them; just like the molten lead one sees flowing like water out of the roaring furnaces. I am not going to give you a formal description of these great works. You wouldn't appreciate it if I did. They fascinated me. The dull red glow in the sky at night fascinated me. The myriads of electric lamps fascinated me. The great chimneys, whose little known story I will tell you presently, fascinated me. But what fascinated me most of all was the presiding genius over all this mass of ceaseless activity. Wheels whirled, generators, hummed, steam hissed, turbo-blowers sent their draughts tearing into the furnaces, huge electric skins travelled overhead, criss-crossing with their heavy loads of ore, molten metal flowed, mills ground, carpenters, blacksmiths, bricklayers, brickmakers, fitters, chemists and assayers worked— and back in his plainly furnished little office sat Mr. O. H. Woodward, the director of this mass of seemingly complicated confusion, looking as if he hadn't a care in the world, and as if the control of the gigantic organisation was the simplest thing on earth. No fuss anywhere. It was just his job — and he did it. It was genius nevertheless. Genius and romance!

Is it not romance that a few years ago the site of this centre of ceaseless energy was lonely, wild, inhospitable swamp on the bank of a little creek; that the river which today accommodates great ocean liners was no larger than a shallow, muddy drain: that a young city exists where there was only water, and sand, and desolation! It is the spectacle of Man's triumph over Nature! Let your imagination dwell for a moment on what has been accomplished, and you will see what I mean.

Some Modern Wonders

I was conducted over the Smelters by Mr. O. E. Rees Jones. I am not going to tell you all he told me. I couldn't if I wanted to. But in the hope that the things which interested me most will also interest you, I will give some of my impressions. Can you imagine red-hot burning slag being conveyed from the furnaces on endless rubber belts? Rubber and burning slag! You would think the belts would last two minutes. They last for years. The secret of their perfection to stand the gruelling heat was, I believed, discovered in the works. Then there is the series of great furnaces—glowing prisons of white heat, whose temperatures range from 1,000 to 1,200 at the taphole. Can you imagine that heat? I can't. And I don't want to. They feed on their own fuel, as it were. By this I mean that the sulphur released from the roasting "charge"' serves as fuel to keep the fires going at the terrific temperature needed for the roasting. That also is a wonderful process devised or adapted at Port Pirie.

Then there is that chimney about which I spoke earlier. Looking at it from the town it does not appear to be particularly impressive. But when you stand at its base and look up at it you begin to realise something of its majesty. It is 185 feet high. That is not the main feature. It is the foundation on which it stands that is a skilled piece of engineering. This is composed of 45 ft. piles buried 10 ft. below the ground. On top of this is a bed of concrete 15 ft. thick, on which rises the foundation of 20 ft. of masonry, and then the huge stack itself, formed of iron bound with brick. But the most wonderful thing of all about that giant flue is its smoke. When I tell you that the smoke is sold you will probably be astonished. But so it is. You will realise its value when you learn that it contains 60 per cent of lead. A sort of bag room has been constructed within the chimney. Here the valuable soot is caught, and at regular intervals the bags are shaken. The product is collected, treated, and marketed. That beats the hog factory at the Chicago stock yards! There they use everything but the squeal. Pirie uses the squeal as well.

Can you imagine bars of silver too heavy to carry? You may see them at the smelters. You may even lift them if you are a strong man. But you cannot get away with them. The doors are locked behind you when you enter the bullion room, and they are kept locked until you leave. And I have a suspicion that the several men about the premises keep a careful eye on your waistcoat pockets to see that you do not, in an absent-minded moment, slip a bar or two therein. Each bar weighs a trifle of 1,150 oz. troy. Perhaps they took extra precautions when they heard that I was coming.

If you want to see lead running like water in a gutter you must go to the smelters. The peculiar thing about it is that it looks like water. It runs out of the furnaces into drains, to be collected in 5-ton kettles. Next it is run into moulds, from whence it is lifted, five great bars at a time, by an electric crane, which stacks it neatly on a trolley, weighs it, and deposits it in regulated piles on the company's wharf, ready for shipment.

Gold which looks nothing at all like gold, was seen in the bullion room. It was being treated by the electrolytic process. Seen in the tanks it looked like the thin, black, slimy scum one sees on top of a fetid swamp. They didn't show me the finished product. Evidently they were prepared to take a chance with me in the silver room, but when it came to the king of metals my name was Mud.

Just now the smelters are not busy. There are under a thousand men at work. When prices rise, many hundreds more will clock in. But even as things are, the huge works mean everything to Pirie. I don't like figures— but here are a few to illustrate just what the company means to South Australia, and this go-ahead town on Spencer's Gulf: —

• Lead has averaged 146,000 tons a year in the last ten years.

• In the same period, the silver produced was nearly 8,000,000 oz. and gold 4,340 oz.

• Wages in ten years totalled about £4,000,000.

• Capital expenditure on the works was approximately £1,500,000.

• Stores cost £2,600,000.

• Over 250,000 tons of lead concentrates were carried yearly on the railway from Broken Hill to the port, and by sea the company's cargoes (inward and out ward) totalled about 386,000 tons.

Those figures make one think.

Pirie Today

Pirie makes an impression on you long before you get there. I entered it from Gladstone. As you reach the summit of the Flinders Range on a clear day you see a thick, blue-black haze away in the west. It is the smoke of the smelters. At Warnertown, seven miles from the port, you encounter the bitumen road which carries you into Ellen street. I am not going to describe the town. It is a metropolis on a small scale, with all the conveniences of a city. There are two large picture theatres. But, curiously, Port Pirie has only just acquired a town hall. This building was formerly known as the institute. The corporation rented part of the premises, and the institute people ran the rest of the show. Recently the corporation bought the institute out for £9,000, including the cost of the new library building to which the latter body has removed, and the remodelling of the hall, which was in full blast when I was there. By now the work should be finished, and the corporation should own a civic headquarters in keeping with the importance of the town. The interior of the old hall has been torn out from top to bottom, and I think when the place is formally opened the citizens will be well satisfied with the result.

The Mayor is Mr. M. M. B. Middleton, the town clerk is Mr. E. E. Garrett. They told me things were brightening up. Evidence of this was furnished by a steady fall in the number of persons receiving public relief. The population is 11,500. The corporation runs a modern crushing plant for dealing with the metal required for the roads — a sort of sandstone secured from the foot hills of the Flinders Range. The town is well lit by electricity, and consumers are supplied with current by the smelters at 4d. per unit for lighting and 2d. for power. This is cheaper than the city.

If you asked me what impressed me most, apart from the Broken Hill Company's big undertaking, I should answer "bikes." I don't think I have ever seen so many. Nearly everybody in Pirie seems to own a push bicycle. Old men and young men, old women and girls. They all have them. Soon after the whistle blows at the works you can scarcely cross the street for the strings of these two-wheeled vehicles, which monopolise the traffic. There seems to be no rule of the road, or, if there is, it is imperfectly observed. There is a reason for this, of course. The railway line runs down the centre of Ellen street, and long strings of trucks often constitute a barrier to crossing the road. Then there is nothing for it but to confine the traffic to half the street. It is very confusing to the visitor. He often finds a motor car hooting at him from where, according to all the rules of traffic it should not be.

The Beach

On Sunday morning I went to see the beach. It wasn't where I thought it was. I knew the sea was due west. So due west I sped. I pulled up in front of a morass thickly studded with mangroves. A bush track seemed to lead away to infinity. I didn't like the look of it, and I backed out. Then someone told me the beach wasn't there, but in quite the opposite direction. The beach, so-called, is at Solomontown. That, as it were, is in the interior. It is the head of the river. When the tide goes out it is mostly beach and little water. When the tide comes in it is mostly water and little beach. But the authorities have done wonders with it. There are swings and shelter sheds and see-saws and icecream kiosks. On a summer night it is a popular rendezvous, a scene of brilliancy and animation. A party of girls swept by, bare-legged, with knapsacks on their backs. Then I knew the hiking craze had reached Pirie. A woman came out of a house and beat a basin with a spoon. Instantly seagulls came screeching up the river, dozens of them, for their morning meal. Obviously it was a daily rite.

There is good country about Pirie. In a normal season 2,000,000 bags of wheat are shipped through the port. There is a fair amount of dairying. The butter is sent overseas. There is an 18-hole golf course, where the north-western championships are decided. Right on the edge of the town is an aeroplane landing ground. The children's playground, constructed by a big co-operative effort in a single day, lies at the southern extremity of Alexander street. The Soldiers' Memorial, which cost £5,000, takes the form of a handsome entrance to the oval. There is a technical school, high school, two primary schools, two infant schools, and a number of privately conducted educational establishments. The oil companies have two depots connected with the wharf by a private pipeline.

Pirie is certainly a town worth knowing. It has much more to show you than I can describe in a single article. And, if you are so disposed, you can buy port wine there at 4d. per butcher glass.

Next Week : Crystal Brook: Grog Shops and Bunyips.