HOW AUSTRALIAN TOWNS ARE BORN.

Hokitika Guardian, 10 February 1921, Page 1

HOW AUSTRALIAN TOWNS ARE BORN.

(By F. F. Lamb). AVEST AUSTRALIA. Hidden n\vay, all over Australia, are tiny townships that one day will play ail important part in the destiny of this great island continent.

A few, principally the older* ones, arc still independent of the railway, hut they are in tlie minority, because the steel rails have linked up the most important with the big cities. A few struggle on in the hope ot being one day considered big enough to induce the Government to build a spur line. Sometimes this happens, hut usually settlers flock to other and more get-at-able centres, with tlie result that the sleepy inhabitants of Opossum Gully have still to rely oil the monthly or twice-monthly mail coach.

Along the branch lines that are constantly being constructed to tap the rich agricultural areas are springing up little townships. Their growth, unlike that of a mining camp, is slow and sure. On the goldfields settlements spring up like mushrooms, but the township that is .dependent on the needs of the agriculturist is built on better foundations.

No flourish of trumpets or Ministerial visits to lay foundation stones mark the birth of the average bush town. In some instances these towns originate with the few canvas tents or hessian “humpies” of platelayers. Sooner or later a storekeeper front somewhere “up the line” builds a small galvanised iron store and opens up a branch at 'tlie “127 miles.” A few settlers drift to the neighbourhood and take up homestead farming blocks of KSO acres. Surveyors come along and survey the district, marking out town blocks on the site of the embryo township. . An hotel of half a dozen iron and weather-board rooms springs up. Later on the township is given a name, and the residents of Botirnchrook— once “127 miles”—petition the Government for a railway siding. Later on more settlers take up country and a real rail wav station is built, with a brick house,' the first in the neighbourhood, for the stationmaster, a not overworked individual, who, incidentally, acts as postmaster, porter, and general railway factotum, Mrs Brown’, whose husband was killed in tho war, begins to bake bread for her neighbours. Mr (late 4907 Private) Jones, who has lost an arm, builds a tiny “humpy” and acts as representative for several of the big city firms. Later on the “Provincial Bank of Australia opens a branch, with a submanager who travels down once a week for a couple of hours.

The Government instals a postmaster, and Bournebrook no longer bas to line up outside tho stationmaster’s office until that dignitary has carefully scrutinised every letter, and possibly read any postcards that may be addressed to fellow-citizens. A State school for the crowd of youngsters that has, somehow or another, filled to overflowing the tiny three or four-roomed houses; an agricultural hall; Mrs Robinson’s boarding house—such is the history of many of Australia’s townships. In a few years’ time tress will be planted along the wide streets. Shops and offices will be opened, churches will he built, stock yards erected, and Bournebrook will forget when it figured in official records as the “127 miles” on the Great North-Eastern Railway.