No 29 Caltowie

Located in the centre of a great open plain, with Jamestown as its big brother on the east, and Laura as its elder sister on the west, Caltowie leads a peaceful but contented existence, and when harvest time is over pockets a fat cheque — provided the season has been kind.

When you run into Caltowie do not imagine that you are meeting a child amongst towns. You would be wrong, for its municipal history goes back to the very beginning of the seventies. But it is a place that has not grown much. It was almost as big in the seventies as it is today. You see, it has two big neighbors on either side in Laura and Jamestown, and it struck me that both take a substantial bite at Caltowie's apple whenever they get the chance.

But, like Topsy, if Caltowie is little it is good. It is solid, and independent, and doesn't give a hang for anyone. If you want to see something extra special in the way of wheat crops, just jump into your car at Laura, and cover the 12 miles or so which separate the two centres. You will pass farms where, if you see your creditors coming, all you have to do is to drive into a wheat crop and your enemy would never know that you were there. You would see mile upon mile of waving green, higher than the fences, with great long heads of rapidly filling grain. I doubt if Caltowie ever had such a season before. If prices were only —— But what's the good of wishing?

Nevertheless, I wouldn't mind having Caltowie's wheat cheque this season. I'd go to Paris, and I'd — never mind, I don't think I'll tell you what I'd do.

When I was younger I had an infantile faith in the things that were told me. One of them was that the North was hot. Don't you believe it. If you want to be disillusioned just go to Caltowie on a bleak day at the end of October. Caltowie is the centre of an enormous plain. The south wind sweeping across that unobstructed stretch of country is keener than Mr. Hill's search for new ways of raising money. Everybody told me it was cold. It was quite unnecessary, I knew it. You see, Caltowie is only a few miles from Yongala, and I suspect it is jealous of that town's reputation of being the coldest in the State. At all events it did its best while I was there to put Yongala in the background. In case you should be thinking I am spending too much time writing about wheat and weather, let me tell you right away that they are Caltowie's chief industries. At harvest the railway sheds are so full of grain that they don't know where to put the surplus. It is sprawled over the yards; is packed neatly in tiers on Mr. Anderson's railway trucks; is put into stacks covered by tarpaulins; and is dumped here, there, and everywhere until the railway officials stand round scratching their heads and wondering where on earth they are going to put the next load. And all the time more waggons are arriving with fresh wheat until you begin to suspect that the glut in the market is due entirely to the ceaseless energy of the Caltowie farmers.

New Variety Of Grain

As if there wasn't enough wheat in Caltowie a local farmer must invent a new variety. This was Mr. G. Petatz. From what I could learn about this gentleman he is one of those progressive enthusiasts who will never admit that the best is good enough. So some years ago he set to work experimenting with a new cross. The result was 'Petatz Surprise.' It was described to me as of high quality, rich in protein, a fair average yielder, and, in bushel weight, the heaviest in the world. So highly was it rated at the Royal Show in Melbourne a week or two ago that it was awarded champion prize. It turned the bushel scale at 69 lb. — a show record. Now will you say I am writing too much about wheat?

It was in 1871-2 that the Caltowie district was thrown open for selection. Among the first settlers were Messrs. J. G. Lehmann. A. Kerr, L. Graham, W. Broadbear, W. Royal, James O'Dea, and many who have passed into the Great Beyond. But, before it became an agricultural district. Caltowie was part of the great Hughes station of Booyoolie. I pave you the history of that famous 'run' in the article on Gladstone, Laura, Georgetown, and several other smaller towns now sprinkle the hills and plains where the sheep of Booyoolie grazed peacefully half a century back.

Veteran District Clerk

I struck a veritable encyclopaedia on Caltowian history in Mr. Angus McDonald, for over fifty years clerk of the local council. The north seems to specialise in these civic records. I no sooner get one venerable official definitely sorted out as the record office-holder than another crops up who can beat him by a decade. Candidly I'm getting tired of it.

Still, the man who can beat Mr. Mc Donald's fifty-two years of plastering unhappy ratepayers with demands for rates should be getting somewhere near the limit mark. Mr. McDonald might have put the record beyond all dispute had he not taken it into his head to retire last June, since when Mr. Horace Branson, a young man with the years before him, has taken up the running with the firm intention of bettering Mr. McDonald's tenure by a year or two. You will find a picture of the old clerk and the new, with the chairman (Mr. M. P. Leahy) as a sort of peacemaker, on this page. Locally they claim for Mr. McDonald a world's record. I would not be surprised if they were right— but I don't know. What I do know, however, is that year after year in the annual report of the Auditor-General, in the classification devoted to the best district clerks in the State, Mr. Mc Donald's name has appeared continuously.

District-clerking was not Mr. Mc Donald's only hobby. There were others— dogs and horses. In 1902 he won the Great Eastern Steeplechase with Ronald, which he bred in the Caltowie district. All over the north his coursing dogs are famous. When he retired last June, he was presented with an illuminated address by the council, it is his most cherished possession.

Banquet In A Tent

I think the most hectic event that ever happened in Caltowie was the opening of the railway. Before this voracious swallower of the country's assets came into existence, all this plethora of wheat I described a short while back, went to Port Pirie, some 33 miles distant, over the Flinders Range, drawn by teams of plodding bullocks over roads as innocent of metal as a baby is of sin, to the accompaniment of cracking whips and lurid language. But the railway changed all that. Today, instead of the 'bullockies,' it is the taxpayers who use the language. Instead of the bullocks, it is the departed Mr. Webb's mountain engines which do the hauling.

It was on January 18, 1878, that Governor Jervois let himself in for a banquet to celebrate the opening of the line between Caltowie and Pirie. The ladies put on their best dresses, which in those days were of the variety which saved the local council the expense of street sweeping, and the men blossomed forth in their Sunday suits. They crowded round the crane platform, because that was the only place in the bare station yard which afforded any vantage point. After his Excellency had shovelled in some coal, or greased the pistons of the engine, or done whatever job was necessary in opening a railway, the company adjourned to a large marquee for a banquet. The marquee was not one of those fancy red and white striped affairs which you borrow at so much per day, but something plain, and staid, and symbolical of the great industry which is the life blood of Caltowie. Its walls were composed of grain-sacks, and its roof of a tarpaulin.

But the banquet was real Caltowie. If you have ever attended an old-fashioned country 'spread,' you will know what I mean — turkey and ham, and fowls, and ducks, and sucking pig, and jam tart, with buckets of cream — and all the other ingredients which send you hot-footed next day to the nearest consulting room. And all these good things were washed down with— lager beer. I consider that the only disappointing thing about the turnout. I can never raise any enthusiasm on lager beer. But, as our friends in Paris say, 'chacun a son, gout.' There was one guest at that 'banquet who found the lager so exhilarating that he playfully smacked the governor on the backhand called him 'Bill.' Perhaps it was only the label on the bottles which called it lager-beer. There is often much virtue in a label.

Which, reminds me of a rather serious practical joke I once played quite innocently on the chairman of a prohibition body in a certain Australian State. It was the closing day of a church conference. The day was to be spent at a picnic in the country, and the climax was to be a prohibition rally at night. The chairman was to be the chief speaker. It was a hot day in February, and as we progressed slowly through the country in old-fashioned horse drags the chairman developed a thirst which would make a bushman expire with envy. When his parched throat could stand the torture no longer he turned to me and asked plaintively:— 'What can I do?' 'Cheer up,' I said, 'there's a pub about a quarter of a mile on.' I always was an authority on the location of these places of refreshment. 'But, my dear man,' he expostulated, 'I cannot go to a pub.' 'Don't worry,' said I. 'If there's any sinning to be done, I don't mind doing it.' I didn't either. For half an hour my mind had been running on schemes for holding up that picnic while I quaffed a long, cool XX at that hostelry. The chairman's dilemma was right into my wicked hands. So the drag stopped at a respectful distance from that house of sin— and I lubricated. Then I bought a bottle of sparkling cider for my suffering companion. He eyed it doubtfully.

'Isn't it intoxicating?' he enquired anxiously. 'Not a bit of it,' I assured him. 'Why, we drank it by the bucketful when we were kids.' So we had. But what we drank as youngsters was the unfermented juice of the apple. Quite innocently I had overlooked the difference between cider as I knew it in my infancy and the highly-charged alcoholic product of modern days. Anyhow, the chairman took my word for it. He quaffed a full glass. He smacked his lips, and remarked:— 'Ah, that tastes good.' Then he had another.

There was no prohibition meeting that night. An announcement was made that the chairman was indisposed. The fact that lie was too drunk to stand was kept a jealously guarded secret. My temperance friends were certain I had deliberately played a joke on their leader. I could not convince them that I was entirely innocent of intent. It was only when I threatened to publish the whole story if they didn't 'shut up' that they left me in peace. No State secret was ever so carefully guarded as that incident. The good man has now passed over to a country where they don't worry about temperance reform, and he probably knows that I acted entirely in good faith. I have told that story to show how I came to lose my faith in labels years ago. A beverage with a kick like a mule has no right to be masquerading as cider.

Blue Ribbon Builder

It is curious that I should have 'blown the gaff' on this dark chapter of the prohibition movement in this article, for on consulting my notes I find that the very next entry deals with a strange incident concerning the construction of the Commercial Hotel in Caltowie. The first hotel in the town— the Caltowie— was erected In 1873 by August Rehder. It was a one-storey place, opposite the council chamber. With the advance of old age it gave up its 'hic-ish' ways and its licence. Most of it has since been demolished, and what is left has been converted into a private residence.

But the story I want to tell is the story of the Commercial, the fore runner of the present house of the same name. When its construction was begun it was intended to lead an ultra-respectable existence as a boarding house. The builder was G. Robinson, and G. Robinson was about as good a blue-ribbon man as you could find in the north. The man who was having the place built was a 'sinner' named Potts. While the house was going up Mr. Potts came to the conclusion that there was money in beer, and he went off secretly to Clare one day and obtained, a publican's licence for the new house. The building was about an average of 3 ft. high when Mr. Robinson heard of Mr. Pott's scandalous conduct. He never said a word, but he picked up his tools and walked off, and nothing would induce him to lay another brick.

The first host of this house was J. Inglis. These were the days when things were booming in Caltowie, and the two hotels did a trade which would sound like a page of fiction today. The pioneer storekeeper was Thomas Williams. I cannot tell you anything about this man, except that his inaugural enterprise entitles him to a niche in local history. He was followed soon after by a rival firm Peters and Cranston. A tiny building, still standing in Brown street, and owned now by the Lutherans, marks the birthplace of Caltowie's religious services. This was the Methodist Church, who pioneered the way here, as well as in several other northern towns.

King Billy In Full Dress

In the Laura article I mentioned the Misses Cox as blazers of the trail in the educational sphere. One of these ladies was the first school teacher in Caltowie. She subsequently married Mr. R. C. Sunman, of Coondambo station. In the benighted seventies it was the habit of the dusky warriors of the bush to wander about the country dressed in nothing more ornamental than the beautiful black-brown skin the Creator had given them. As in those times there were practically no white women in the far north. King Billy's scornful disregard of the tailor's fashions of the day was of no great importance. But when the owner of Coondambo decided to take his wife to the station, where the blacks had been wont to gather in the full beauty of their nudeness, he had the bucks rounded up, and solemnly impressed on them the necessity of donning suitable clothing when they came to the homestead. They promised as solemnly to obey his instruction. On the morning following the bride's arrival along came King Billy to pay his respects to the 'missus.' He was dressed in a waistcoat!

Caltowie And Iron Knob

I suppose in the matter of deposits of iron ore there is nothing in the world to beat the famous Iron Knob, just across the gulf from Port Pirie. In the days before that was acquired by the smelters the option over it was owned by a Caltowie syndicate. But they didn't know what to do with it. They tried to sell it to the Broken Hill companies, but they wouldn't buy. Then in disgust, the syndicate threw up its option, and it was immediately taken up by the companies. Prior to the acquisition of Iron Knob by the Associated Smelters, flux for smelting used to be drawn from Caltowie, Port Augusta, Quorn, Wilmington, and other places in the north. Now the works have such an inexhaustible supply that these scattered deposits are neglected. Caltowie still has an interest in the Broken Hill mines on account of the quantity of ore which passes through the town on its way from the mines to the smelters.

Caltowie was never heavily timbered country, even in the early days. When the agriculturists pushed the pastoralists northwards, the great plain was open land. Porcupine grass was the chief bugbear of the farmers in the initial cultivation. Still, although the growers only had double furrow ploughs, the grass was dealt with much more cheaply than timber would have been.

I asked Mr. McDonald for what Caltowie was most noted. He answered. 'Publicans.' As there was only one hotel in the town, I was a little, puzzled, until he gave me a list of Caltowie people who had 'made good' in the profession of catering for the travelling public. For a small town the list was rather striking: — The Flannagans (3), Lees (4), Leahys (4), C. A. Goldfinch (Exchange and Criterion), Noonans (2), including the host of the Southern Cross., H. Pike (Port Wakefieid), R. Piper, J. Kildea, T. Leahy, and J. McMahon. And there were others whose names could not be recalled.

By the way, I was so shocked over that story I told you about King Billy's state visit to Mrs. Sunman that I forgot to mention that the first public school teacher in Caltowie was a Mr. Roberts, whose advent was somewhere about 1879. He was followed by a Mr. Shannon. A little tin shanty across the road from the council chamber was the postal edifice of 1879, where Herbert Cobb was postmaster. But prior to this the postal business was handled at the store of Peters and Cranston. The National Bank was the pioneer institution for supplying overdrafts. It opened in 1877 with Mr. W. K. (?) Mallyon as manager. In those days Caltowie was on the main mail route from Burra to Mount Remarkable and Port Augusta.

Sir John Cockburn

When I write the story of Jamestown shortly I will tell you something about Sir John Cockburn, who began his public career there, where he was mayor of the town. But I heard the name of Cockburn so often at Caltowie that I began to suspect that town of having a part-interest in the former South Australian Premier. Enquiries proved I was right. It appears that when Sir John, then a struggling M.D. without a title, began to cast longing eyes towards the marble palace on North terrace, the people of both towns grew apprehensive lest his great services to the place should be lost to them. Cockburn came to Caltowie to sound public feeling there, and found the town in tended to vote against him to a man. Surprised and puzzled, he sought out the leader of the opposition. 'It's that way,' explained that important individual. 'If we put you in Parliament we'll lose you— and we don't intend to do it.'

Cockburn got over the difficulty by promising to live in Jamestown if he was elected. I am sorry to say that, like every other politician ever born, he didn't keep his promise.

Recently the Caltowie District Council nearly 'went west.' The town consists of two hundreds— Tarcowie, 17 miles distant, and Caltowie. The Royal Commission on municipal boundaries cast a cold and unfriendly eye on both, and opined that it would give Tarcowie to Yongala, and Caltowie to Gladstone. But the Caltowie council took off its coat, rolled up its sleeves, and yelled, 'Arragh, come on, be jabers!' You see, the chairman's name is Leahy — and you've only got to give an Irishman the merest suspicion of a cause and he gets into a fight like a schoolboy gets into mischief. Anyway, the Royal Commission caught the next train back to town, and forgot all about the matter.

Caltowie is a ''wet' district. I don't mean that it is given to violent violations of the Eighteenth Amendment. But if you want water you don't have to go very far to get it. You just dig a hole and there it is. In the winter you don't even have to dig holes. It just good-naturedly comes to the surface - and overflows into the cellars, and the townspeople say— well never mind. The whole of the town supply is drawn from wells. 'Cowie' is native for water, so that in Tarcowie and Caltowie you have the respectively the 'Lizard's waterhole' and 'Wash- away water.' The chief drawback locally is that the supply contains an abnormal quantity of magnesia, and this eats away the stonework of the houses. But there you are— you can't have everything.

NEXT WEEK Jamestown: A Go-ahead Centre.

Images:

· Railway station, the centre of distribution of Caltowie's great wheat production.

· Messrs. Angus McDonald (veteran district clerk of Caltowie, who has just retired after 52 years' service), M. F. Leahy (chairman), and Horace Branson (district clerk).