Fourteen years after the colony of South Australia was founded there were sheep runs established in and around the Flinders Ranges. The wool was carted to Adelaide via Burra - a long, troublesome and expensive journey. There had to be a better way, and in 1852 a new shipping place was established at the head of the gulf.
Frederick Hayward decided to take the 1853 clip from his Aroona run (106 bales on three drays) to the new shipping place through a 'Gorge called Pichi Richi which I can hardly describe'. Over and around hills, in and out of creek beds, sometimes only five bales at a time dragged by two teams of bullocks. To make it worse it snowed in the area on 2nd October 1853. (It didn't snow in Quorn, though, because Quorn didn't exist!) Fred was accompanied by his friend James Craig, with two drays of his own clip.
Fred and Jim camped at the western end of the gorge where there was, what turned out to be, permanent water. They were 10 miles (16 km) from the spot where his chartered ship 'Daphne' waited. Six months later, the shipping place was laid out as the town of Port Augusta - 'mostly sand, mosquitoes and no fresh water'.
The following year Henry Minchin (the local Protector of Aborigines) named the camping ground 'The Saltia from the aboriginal word 'Thaltja', meaning 'Gums' - a name given also to the creek which ran by. The Saltia became a regular camping ground and watering spot for the teamsters who found their way through the gorge. It is dry now because of numerous bores sunk in the area.
Henry Minchin found water on his own account only five miles from Port Augusta at a place quite sensibly called 'Minchin's Well'.
Then in 1857, Goyder surveyed a road through the Pichi Richi gorge. Civilisation at last! It can be called a 'Pass'!
© PRR Collection
Having a road through the Pass really set things going.
A blacksmith, James Finn, promptly bought land three miles (5 km) into the Pass from the north eastern end. Perhaps he calculated that drays would be needing repairs by then, in spite of (because of?) the 'road'.He was followed by A C Simmons, who bought land and built a hotel at The Saltia in 1859. In the same year, Robert Barr Smith bought land around Minchin's Well and surveyed a town he called 'Stirling' after his business partner.
Then to 1866, when D McIntyre bought land half a mile (900 m) further into the Pass from Jim Finn's, and on the opposite side of the road, where he built the 'Pichi Richi Inn'.
A C Simmons' hotel at The Saltia must have done good business, because in 1862 he laid out the private township of 'Saltia'. Teamster families became the main citizens. The hotel was by far the most outstanding building, but substantial homes of stone with shingle roofing were strung out along both sides of the road leading up to the hotel, with a couple on the other side of the creek. The allotments ranged from 400-500 feet (120-150m) in depth and 100-250 feet (30-95m) in width. Saltia's total length as surveyed was 1900 feet (580m), although most of the houses seemed to be located between the cemetery (which I am told has one grave) and the hotel.
I have counted fourteen stone homes from the various photos and there were probably other families living in tin sheds or tents. The township boasted a school run by the Sisters of St Joseph. It was opposite the hotel (so that the children could call there after school to escort daddy home?)
Saltia also had a General Store & Post Office run by Thomas Lees. The Lees must have been among the first couples to live there, because their daughter Elizabeth was the first white child to be born at Saltia. That was in 1859, so they must have been living and/or working at the hotel. Thomas established the General Store & Post Office in 1869. He was obliged to close it nine years later because the new railway line went right through their dining room and made lunch breaks rather awkward. In the meantime however, Elizabeth had fallen in love with an R W Foster. They married and he had joined the business. Smart fellow! So the two families moved to the new town of Quorn and set up a business there which eventually became R W Foster's Northern Emporium.
The teamster population of Saltia began to diminish as the railway took their jobs away. However, the railway siding was put to good use because the township supplied building stone and firewood to Port Augusta (goodbye to the gums which gave the place its name!).
The local publican did his bit to keep business alive. He advertised his facilities in Port Augusta as suitable for picnics or 'for a few days break from business worries, cross wives and crying children'. Maybe the PRR could try something similar to attract more members?
In 1891 there were still 36 children at the school, although some must have come from the surrounding area. The School House had been demolished by then, so classes must have been held elsewhere.
Those early 1890's marked the end of Saltia - a little town which made its contribution for more than thirty years. Very little remains, partly because realignment of the road to its present position lopped off the front section of many blocks and, I suspect, part of the hotel.
But nothing can take away Saltia's character and worth.
I have already mentioned the Pichi Richi Inn which was built in 1866. It must have done a very satisfactory business providing refreshment for teamsters on the way to Port Augusta - a sort of entree before they got to their homes at Saltia, with water and rest for the bullocks and a bit of a break for them.
So came the first strange decision: Just when the railway was built through the Pass (1878-9), this guy W G Beauchamp built a hotel and 'Pichi Richi Brewery' almost on top of the Pichi Richi Inn (of which he had been licensee about a year before!). Unbelievable! Perhaps he just wanted to cash in on the railway construction workers camped at Woolshed Flat and travelling through, because he followed them as they moved on and, by 1880, had a 'Main Camp Hotel' near Hawker. Beauchamp's Hotel and the Pichi Richi Brewery in the Pass closed in 1883. It seems he had more money than brains!
The Pichi Richi Inn continued on until 1886. Neither hotel had any connection with the township of Pichi Richi - they were well beyond its southern boundary. It is possible also, that the cemetery opposite them belonged to the Pichi Richi Inn - one publican who died (John Pascoe in 1878) is probably buried there, as his wife, Annie, took over the business. There may well have been other deaths over the hotel's twenty year lifespan.
Now to the second strange decision: Blacksmith Jim Finn laid out the private township of 'Pichi Richi' on part of his property just as the railway went through, and Quorn was established as a railway centre. Within six months Quorn had a flour mill and two hotels, so what hope did that give Pichi Richi, with no focus at all?
Nevertheless, the 64 housing allotments which were advertised aroused plenty of interest. Fifteen people from as far away as Adelaide and England bought 31 allotments, mainly site unseen. It was speculation at its best, especially considering that fourteen of the allotments were on the Saltia creekbed! Perhaps Jim Finn was an opportunist like Beauchamp and, in his case, just wanted to sell off land that he didn't need. His own home was not included in the township. Neither was the 'Willow Brewery' which his friend William Taylor built for him in 1880 next to his well of 'excellent water'.
The surveyor's plan shows that the township was 1700 feet long and 650 feet wide (500m by 200m). The allotments averaged 70 feet in width (21m). (He must have had an eye on Annie Pascoe judging by the street names!) However, it never really got off the ground. At best it had a General Store & Post Office of galvanised iron and four houses of stone - more streets than houses! A photo (1880) and a painting (1881) describe it as a 'hamlet' - it hardly even fitted that category.
Within a year (1879) the owner of the store (J McMahon) was trying to sell it: land, buildings and stock in trade of drapery, grocery, ironmongery, saddlery, china, etc. Obviously he could see the writing on the wall - or in his cash book.
Then two years later, William Taylor advertised the Willow Brewery for sale, together with Jim Finn's house and land. How they got into his hands I don't know. But read on - he may have been the beneficiary in his friend's will.
Jim Finn had died in 1880. He was buried in the Pichi Richi Cemetery, which also has four other graves (three adults and one child), all unnamed. His is the grave with the sheet iron fence around it, in the diagonally opposite corner to the other four. His name is stamped on a strip of galvanised steel, along with the date.
So Jim never lived to see his town wilt and die. Nor did he see his precious brewery burn to the ground in January 1883. It was set alight by sparks from a train belting up the grade. That's the official story anyway. I'm not the only one to wonder whether William made 'arrangements' to gain a nice insurance payout for a Brewery he couldn't sell! The Old Willows Brewery Restaurant of today is built on the original foundation.
The only remnants of the Pichi Richi hamlet that can be seen from the train or the road today are the walls of J McMahon's house (with a tree growing through them), just south of the large galvanised iron implement shed on the Willows Restaurant land.
Thus concludes the World of the Pichi Richi Pass as it was, more than a century ago, offered in the hope that we can bring some of it to life again for our customers.
Assistance acknowledged from:
This article was researched by Geoff Horne, a member of Pichi Richi Railway Preservation Society Inc.
© 2000 Geoff Horne (reproduced by Chris Carpenter from The Patter) The Pichi Richi Railway Quarterly magazine. 17th.May 2000
