The Remembering Them project that has been in progress since 2014 (to 2018) to commemorate the 1914-1918 WWI centenary) has been generously funded by Lottery West and the WA Government. Thanks to the Army Museum (Fremantle) WA for temporary display objects of the 10th Light Horse (for Kununurra Museum), as well as the WA State Records Office for images of the 'cancelled public plans' and the State Library of Western Australia who supplied photographs (& plans) for use on the history exhibition panels.
Official openings on the weekend of May 5th & 6th 2018
For full details see the Kununurra Museum Events Page
Latest Online Collections
The Kununurra Historical Society collections on Flickr have had 500,000 image views in the past 15 months (since December 2016), which equates to an average of more than 33,000 views each month. This now takes the total image views of our Flickr collections to more than 2,500,000. All of the KHS collections, including this latest collection are also discoverable on the National Library of Australia's wonderful Trove Search Engine. Try searching Kununurra on Trove (Pictures) from https://trove.nla.gov.au/picture/result?q=kununurra.
James Gooderson Collection - 1960-1962 PWD Ord Surveys and Survey of Tidal Power in the Kimberley 1963
A new collection placed online in March 2018 is from James Gooderson now of Mornington Island, who was working with a PWD Survey Crew for the Ord River Irrigation Area 1960-1962 and was on the PWD Tidal Power Survey along the Kimberley Coast in 1963. A great collection that is relevant to the current push for renewable energy in Australia.
View the Jim Gooderson Collection at Kununurra Museum on Flickr or view a separate Album from his collection...
This is a classic piece of 1963 history that is relevant to today's use of renewable energy, showing part of the Kununurra Historical Society's Jim Gooderson collection, from when he was on a PWD survey crew that was making a survey of Tidal Power along the Kimberley Coast. A paper was published by Public Works Department Engineer, John Lewis, who was involved with the Ord River Diversion Dam construction. John has kindly given KHS permission to re-publish his paper, which we hope to have online shortly.
View Jim Gooderson's photographs of the 1963 Tidal Power Survey on the Kimberley Coast (Goes to the collection on Flickr).
1963 - Tidal Power survey - Secure Bay - West Kimberley - Robby on Tidal Power survey_KHS-2012-97-cg-b-P10-D - James Gooderson Collection (Photo Link goes to KHS Flickr Album)
Are you 1 in 1,000 Philanthropists who love history? (to Support future KHS Work :^)
On Saint Patrick's Day - March 17th 2017, which was the day of the 1963 Royal Tour to Kununurra, I decided to post on the Royal Family's Facebook Page, which got a Royal response from a possible future Queen. [I was impressed! Thank you Kate (and family! :^) from the KHS.]
Our friends at the Northern Territory Police Museum & Historical Society (NTPMHS), who first suggested using Google Sites, the base from which I have tweaked and hacked more functionality out of, for this Google Hosted (Apps for non-profits) kununurra.org.au website, ever since we started in late 2010. Thanks John! - I found on the NTPMHS cool YouTube Channel, that they had footage of the Royal Yacht Brittania arriving in Port Darwin in March 1963 as well as the Royal Party arriving at the RAAF 'drome Darwin. An 8mm home film from the NTPMHS Mannion Collection.(Courtesy of the NTPMHS YouTube Channel, embedded here to view now! :^) Hope you enjoy this great bit of #PortDarwinHistory
KHS on Flickr - Our 2nd Millionth View
http://www.flickr.com/photos/khs-museum/collections/72157625849162917/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/khs-museum/collections/72157625974583388/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/khs-museum/albums
Kununurra-Wyndham Historical Societies Joint Christmas Lunch
To All KHS Members & Supporters - Have a Merry Christmas in 2016 and a Happy and Prosperous New Year in 2017! From the Kununurra Historical Society.
[For detailed information about the images in the montage - download this... 2015-12-25 - KHS Christmas 2015 -New Year 2016 History Montage Card.pdf, which describes the images.]
2016 RWAHS (State) Merit Award to KHS
At the Royal WA Historical Society (RWAHS) State History Conference during September, which the KHS President was able to attend for the first time and was greatly surprised that the Royal WA Historical Society (RWAHS) - State-wide Merit Award for 2016 was awarded to the Kununurra Historical Society. The KHS President was delighted to be able to accept the framed award for KHS and express our appreciation to those gathered at the conference. (Our congratulations and our apologies go to runner-up Societies this year, Toodyay and Kalgoorlie ;^)
Congratulations to Kununurra Historical Society!
Kununurra is a remote and isolated location but this does not deter the Society. Despite, or as a result of this remoteness, the Society has made a push to develop its digital resources which have been uploaded onto a very informative website. The website includes a wealth of information about Kununurra, including photographs, local events and news. This year three volunteers recorded 3,330 hours on a variety of tasks, including digitisation of the collection, transcription activities and working on the archives. In dollar terms this work is worth some $116,550. The Museum, which in 2015 was open five days a week, increasing to seven days a week in 2016, attracts a large number of visitors. Over the past year 2,009 people have visited. This year Kununurra celebrates its 30th year in operation. Well done!
Museums are ******* Awesome!
The engaging three day Museums Australia WA (MAWA) conference - Engaging Communities - New Times, New Strategies, 12-14 October 2016 was also attended by the KHS President, with a full three day program of tours and interesting speakers, we were kept up to speed on what's happening at the cutting edge of other collecting institutions and museums in WA, as well as in the UK and the USA - from where we learned about "Museum Hack" tours at "the Met' " museum in New York. The conference had much of interest on offer and was very useful for networking with other attendees, well worth attending.
Being as remote as we are (>3000 km from Perth by road) it would have been unlikely we could have attended without these bursaries, which are greatly appreciated by KHS and we thank all involved from both organisations (RWAHS & MAWA) who assisted in organising these travel bursaries and for the funding from LotteryWest to attend both the RWAHS and MAWA conferences.
Fred Gutte - 'Wave Hill Spurs' Presented to the Kununurra Museum
Fred Gutte was a highly skilled blacksmith at Wave Hill station in the 1940’s and Donald has personal reminiscences in his memoirs describing some days working with him in the blacksmith's shop at Wave Hill, which are a priceless record. Photograph to right shows Donald Howard holding his Wave Hill spurs.
Gutte made the spurs to his own design and sold them to stockmen and drovers on their personal order. The spurs became famous on every stock route and station throughout northern Australia. Donald said he had paid Mr. Gutte several old-style round tins of Log Cabin for the job.
[No longer..] WANTED! - RM Williams Cuban Heels
Response was good to a plea for an old pair of RM Williams Cuban Heel Stockman's boots that were no longer in use, as the fitting item to display the Wave Hill spurs on, and we now have 2 x pairs. This was fortunate as Ian Petherick donated spurs owned by his late father Hugh Petherick (VRD - Legune - East Kimberley) said to have been acquired by Hugh from Lake Nash station NT, close to the Queensland border in the 1930s.
We had no spurs before June 2016 to now have 5 x Spurs in the Kununurra Museum collections, now, besides the two pairs mentioned, another machine-made brass, 'Mexican spur' circa 1910s to 1920s & oldest in the collection (may be USA machine made), with provenance to East Kimberley history. This odd spur had been found under or near the school-house in use at the Argyle Downs homestead school of the 1960s, by a teacher there at the time and kept by his wife. I know that KHS member Meg Gayoso had treasured this brass spur, in her life since that time and it must have been hard for her to part with it for KHS collections, so thanks to Meg, and hope you can be happy to hear that many visitors have already seen this on display and wondered at it's well machined structure, and to compare to the two larger pairs of Australian hand-made spurs.
Weekend of 24 to 26 June 2016 - A Great Success!
On
the weekend of June 24th
to 26th
2016, we commemorated this history with various events that opened on the night of Friday June 24th
with a KHS version of the 1946 Rosewood Station film with embedded history images and a documentary film, “On the Banks of the Ord”
made by Kevin Richards.
These were shown on the big screen at the Kununurra Picture Gardens. The following morning (Saturday June 25th) started at the original Carlton Reach – 'Ord River Experimental Farm' site @lias Lake Kununurra Golf Club, with an opening address by Matthew Durack (the son of Bill Durack, who had worked with his brother, Kim Durack at Carlton Reach 1942-1944).
[Photograph - 1957 - Kimberley Michael Durack (1917-1968) - Taken at Camballin, West Kimberley 1957 - KHS-2010-43-P-BD - Carlton Reach 1941 Display - This KHS Archive was part of displays originally made for the conference '50 Years of Ord Irrigation - Reviews & Future Perspectives' in 1991, now on display at the Kununurra Museum.]
The group of 40 to 50 people at the history forum then drove out to the former Kimberley Research Station site, now Department of Agriculture WA - Kununurra HQ, where the rest of the day was spent with tours and talks covering from the earliest history through to the future directions of Ord Irrigation. On Sunday there was a tag-along tour to see graves near old Ivanhoe station, then back to town to take a look at some of the fascinating history in the Kununurra Museum and KHS Archive, at an Open Day. All events were well attended and from far and wide, came members of the Durack family, who made up almost half of those who attended. [Read more about the forum weekend on the Events page.]
[Photograph - Below - A 1944 aerial photograph of the Carlton Reach Experimental Farm overlaid to show as it is now, with the main channel cutting through the first Research Station]
30 Years of the Kununurra Historical Society - Sunday June 5th 2016
"Wirraway-Challenge" Day
Every March 20th is "Wirraway-Challenge" Day at the Kununurra Museum
They were out over the Timor sea, in the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf, when
their engine suddenly lost power and oil spread out over the windscreen,
which Lew found was hot on his face, when he opened the canopy to clean
the windscreen. Carmody was able to take control with the twinned rear
training controls of the Wirraway, while Lew cleared the oil from his
face, having already headed the aircraft to port, south, towards
Australia! It was still around 20 km to land, but with their altitude,
the stricken plane managed the distance to the coastline. They glided in
over one of the widest stretches of saltmarsh, where it is about 40 km
from sea to bush, with a dead flat saltmarsh between.Wirraway means Challenge - Read more and see listings of the eight Wirraway-Challenge digital videos.
We have now had 1,992,492 (1.99 Million) Image Views (Dec. 7 2016).
In December 2016 or January 2017 - Will you be our 2,000,000th Viewer?
The
KHS photographs on the
Flickr site,
have now had over
1,938,650
image views (August 20th 2016). In Feb 2016 it was 1,760,057,
a good
increase of
70,789
views
in the two months before (Feb 2016).
Views
peaked on January 28th
– 7,006
views
on that day.
[These Links open in new tabs/windows]
Hope you enjoy.
In March 1941 Kimberley Michael Durack (KMD) published a thoroughly researched document, 'Developing the North - A Proposed Research Station for the Kimberleys,' and by the end of 1941 his proposal had become a reality.
In 2014 it was realised that we did not have this document of great significance to Ord River Irrigation history, in the KHS archive, so in February 2015 the document was photographed at the Battye Library, then back in Kununurra each page was transcribed by KHS volunteers. Since then the transcriptions and 'Proposed Research Station' page images have been compiled into a new electronic document format, which we are placing online to make this accessible to all.
It is fascinating to realise that Kim Durack was just 24 years old when he wrote this proposal, researched and written with great skill. We hope you enjoy reading...
Download KHS archive number KHS-2015-1-H-BD - 'Developing the North - Proposed Research Station for the Kimberleys' (5.6 MB) written by KM Durack and published 75 years ago on March 31st 1941 (in 2016).
KHS hopes you enjoy and we would appreciate any feedback you may have.
[As this PDF is hyperlinked it is best viewed by saving to your hard drive and viewing in Adobe Acrobat Reader and not in web based viewers as hyperlinking may not work correctly. - Below - Crop from cover of the KHS transcribed document - Click image to download this document of historical significance, to mark 75 years of Ord Irrigation history in 2016, made accessible to all by KHS in August 2015.]
In 1886 the town of Wyndham came into existence and the rush was setting in for 'Kimberley' (Halls Creek) goldfields, with ships arriving the tent city of Wyndham soon turned into a town. Visit Halls Creek and Wyndham in 2016 and make sure you go to the old Courthouse in the Port to the Wyndham Museum and experience the history there too mark 130 years.
Amazingly in 2016 our 'new' purpose-built archive and museum facility, today known as the Kununurra Museum, will have been in operation for fifteen years. This amounts to half of the existence of the Kununurra Historical Society, having been inaugurated on June 5th 1986, we will be commemorating 30 years as a society.
- Short Contents - (This Page :)
Kim Durack's Pump Engine is Now at the Kununurra Museum
Since locating and researching the
provenance of the 36HP "Petters Atomic Diesel Engine," KHS member
volunteers have worked at trying to make the engine more accessible (to all! :-), for display at the Kununurra Museum, to help show the local, State and National significance of tropical agriculture on the Ord and in the Kimberley Region. 
The Petters 36 HP - Carlton Reach Pump Engine in place at the Kununurra Museum on October 24th 2013 KHS Archive Number - KHS-2013-124-P-BD - Note that the original river loam is still embedded in the fly-wheel and outer belt pulley wheel, left there when the engine was removed from the Ord River east bank at KRS, by Murray Shiner and one of his excavators, some years ago. A request was made when moving the engine this year, to leave this in place and amazingly this soil has remained in place throughout the various movements to get to the museum grounds.
Having a Wet Season Christmas - Slideshow
Hope you enjoy the slideshow - Use the four-cornered gadget to lower right of screen (below) to see Full Screen - Use 'Show Info' for detailed image information.Recent announcements
-
May 2018 Remembering Them Exhibition May 2018 - Kununurra Museum & Wyndham Museum - 'Remembering Them' Exhibitions A Grave in the Long Grass - Neal Durack on Ivanhoe Station (Opens at the Kununurra Museum during May then ongoing) This ...
Posted 27 Apr 2018, 19:57 by Kununurra Museum -
Jim Gooderson Collection Online James Gooderson Collection - 1960-1962 PWD Ord Surveys and Survey of Tidal Power in the Kimberley 1963 A new collection placed online in March 2018 is from James Gooderson now ...
Posted 24 Mar 2018, 21:06 by Kununurra Museum -
1967 Kununurra Inaugural Races 50 Years Ago "K.A.R.C. Scrapbook" (1967-1976) Collection To commemorate 50 years of the Kununurra Amateur Race Club, in August 2017 a new collection has been placed online, the "K ...
Posted 22 Mar 2018, 10:01 by Kununurra Museum -
New Ord Noah Collection NEW - Operation Ord Noah - Henry Hall Album Now Online A great new collection of 193 photographs have been derived from the album made by Henry Hall, who was in charge ...
Posted 16 Aug 2017, 12:04 by Kununurra Museum -
A Royal LIKE of Kununurra Museum on fb A Royal LIKE! On Saint Patrick's Day - March 17th 2017, which was the day of the 1963 Royal Tour to Kununurra, I decided to post on the Royal Family ...
Posted 17 Apr 2017, 17:04 by Kununurra Museum
View the KHS Constitution
You can now see the current KHS Constitution here on the website or as downloadable PDFs from there.
- Short Contents - (This Page :)
The Official Opening of Ord Stage I and the Ord River Diversion Dam took place at a Ceremony on July 20th 1963 - On that date in 2013 (this week), Engineering Heritage WA along with support from the Water Corporation of Western Australia, will unveil a new interpretive panel at the Kununurra Swim Beach, about the Ord River Diversion Dam, with some images and the history supplied by KHS. This will incorporate a lunch for invited guests and a tour of inspection over the Ord River Diversion Dam, which is normally closed to pedestrians. Later in the day from 2pm the Kununurra Museum will be open for the visiting pioneer engineers, VIPs and guests.
Do you know who officially opened Ord Stage I and the Ord River Diversion Dam? In 2013 it was 50 years since July 20th 1963, when the official opening of Stage I of the Ord River Irrigation Project, by then Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies. On that day, Menzies described Kununurra and the Ord as "the most exciting place in Australia".
Photographs of the opening ceremony event and tours Menzies made of the
Pilot Farm and a cotton harvesting demonstration can be seen in the
slideshow.
View an embedded SlideShow of photographs of the July 20th 1963 Diversion Dam opening, from various KHS archive collections,
here while on this page.
[Use the right hand cornered gadget to go full
screen.- and view "Information" (once in full screen mode) for documentation on the photographs. Use the the right hand cornered gadget or your "Escape" key to go out of full
screen mode.]
OR View the Ord River Diversion Dam Official Opening photographic "Set" on Flickr. (Link goes to the set on Flickr in a new tab)
- Short Contents - (This Page :)
An Honorary Life Member of the Kununurra Historical Society passed
away on Christmas eve 2013. To celebrate the life of William Arthur
Champness Wright, we hope you enjoy here a slideshow of Bill's 35mm
slide collection. KHS was also fortunate enough to have recorded an oral
history and had some great interaction with Bill, especially during the
last two or three years. The Oral History and this slide collection are
in the same archive - KHS-2011-46-P-A-OH-BD - Bill Wright Oral History
and 35mm Slide Collection. [P=Photographic, A=Audio, OH=Oral History,
BD=Born Digital]
[Use the four cornered gadget at lower right to go fullscreen. Once in fullscreen mode use "Show Info" at top right for detailed information on each slide.]
[July 14th 2013 Note]
Congratulations go out to Darrell Lewis, who has been visiting Kununurra this past week, attending several Kununurra Museum functions, a few days after he had been present in Darwin to receive the NT Chief Minister's - History Book Award, as equal winner, for his book, "A Wild History - Life and Death on the Victoria River Frontier." This is a fascinating, well written and referenced, easy read for the general public, being an early history (to circa 1910) of the entire Victoria River district, from Katherine to the East Kimberley WA/NT border regions.
Down the Duncan Road and out to the southern side of the Buchanan Highway to beyond Birrindudu. There on the edge of desert country, on the northern slopes of the Browns Range, lies a belt of about 280 "big, old" boab trees, cut off by great distance from the nearest of all other Kimberley boab trees, and close to where the Leichhardt name-plate is said to have been found over a century ago.
The name-plate, with the words "Ludwig Leichhardt 1848," was found on a burnt gun in the hollow of a "bottle-tree," (boab) reputedly with an "L" inscribed on the tree. The gun to which the brass nameplate (145mm wide x 20mm high x 2mm thick) had been attached, was left at the tree, was supposedly found by stockman, Charlie Harding's Aboriginal assistant, "Jackie." Little is known of this pair's Kimberley movements, who may have gone out prospecting from Hall's Creek towards the Gardiner Range and near the Sturt Creek WA/NT border region, Despite intensive search by helicopter and quad bike, by Darrell and others in 2007 and 2008 respectively, a boab with an "L" inscribed, nor the gun remains (which would have been an early muzzle-loader), have yet been located. [KHS President - 14 VII 2013]
The Leichhardt nameplate is on display at the National Museum of Australia (NMA), where more information can be found. The image below of the nameplate is from the NMA s web page for the object listing - NMA Collection Object Listing - Leichhardt Nameplate [This link will open in a new tab to keep this page open]
A new book by Darrell Lewis.
Could the famous lost explorer have made it past the Kimberley? Read more about a new book launch on Thursday May 16th at the National Museum of Australia from the KHS News page.
- Short Contents - (This Page :)
Thanks to Museums Australia (the peak body for Museums in Australia), the KHS President was successful in applying for a bursary, to help cover costs associated with travel between May 15th and 23rd, to attend the Museums Australia Conference in Canberra, which has a great range of topics relevant to a regional museum (See full conference program from KHS News).
- Short Contents - (This Page :)
Carlton Reach Pump Engine Donated to KHS
The Department of Agriculture and Food WA - Frank Wise Institute (of Tropical Agriculture - formerly Kimberley Research Station - KRS), have donated the original Carlton Reach Pump Engine, a 36HP "Petters Atomic Diesel Engine," to the Kununurra Historical Society. KHS member volunteers hope to install the engine by the Kununurra Museum entrance gate. Read more in KHS News - Carlton Reach Petters Engine Donated to Kununurra Museum and on the Carlton Reach Pump Engine page.
- Short Contents - (This Page :)
On March 17th 2013 - Saint Patrick's Day, to commemorate the day
50 years ago that the Royal Tour landed at Kununurra, KHS held an Open Day (10am to 4pm), but if you didn't join us at the Museum, you can still be a part of it. The Kununurra Museum has now made accessible to all!, three 8mm films, shot by three photographers (Henskens, O'Brien and Revell), edited into a Digital Video (in 2
parts) as our first YouTube videos, to the NEW Kununurra Museum YouTube Channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/KununurraMuseum
You can also see some research on the RAAF Convair aircraft A96-353, that carried the Royal Tour party to Kununurra, from the KHS Research page.
Hoping you enjoy this visit to the gateway for the Kununurra Museum's online presence. If you are in the East Kimberley visit the KHS Archive, Gallery, Library, Museum & Research facilities in Coolibah Drive - Contact KHS or Join KHS Now!. Please remember we are a completely volunteer run community museum and at times may not be open for advertised hours, however we are flexible in that we can be contacted to open outside advertised hours.
- It is easy to navigate the site using the Short Contents (Links on this Page :), and the Heading links to get there fast! eg. click the "Did You Know..." title link below.
1963 Royal Tour
Some new images of a control tower, which was erected for the 1963 Royal Tour, then dismantled. It was made of scaffolding, but no doubt equipped with the latest technology available in 1963. These photographs and others in the collections also show two RAAF fire tenders, which were reputed to have been flown to Kununurra on RAAF transport aircraft, then flown away. The newly made accessible images of the control tower were from a 2007 accession to the archive, being part of a collection sent by the Civil Aviation Historical Society (WA). Other images from this collection are now being placed online.
It would be great to see if there are any photographs of the Royal Yacht, Brittania, alongside the Broome jetty, or any others you may have of the Royal Tour to the Kimberley in 1963. Please contact us if you do and tell us your story on this or any other Kimberley history.
To commemorate this 50th anniversary of the 1963 Royal Tour, other collection images not yet online, will be uploaded and made accessible to all. KHS is also hoping to have ready, some 8mm film footage of the Royal Tour, available as our first YouTube video, before March 17th 2013. [This did happen on the eve of and just in time for that anniversary]
View an embedded SlideShow of still images from the KHS Flickr site of the Royal Tour in Kununurra, from various KHS archive collections, here while on this page, use the right hand cornered gadget to go full screen.
OR View the Royal Tour 1963 photographic "Set" on Flickr, (Link goes to the set on Flickr in a new tab),
It is easy to navigate the site using the Short Contents (Links on this Page :), and the Heading links to get there fast! eg. click the "Welcome..." title link above.About the Header Photograph
Latest Info at KHS News
- Short Contents - (This Page :)
Visit KHS Museum
Search ALL on the KHS Site
- Short Contents - (This Page :)
See over 2500 photographs that have been digitised and documented by dedicated KHS volunteers.
Read more about KHS on Flickr (here on this site : ) for an overview of the best ways to view the archive images on the Flickr site.
See the KHS Digital Archive - Images Online as Slideshows or view groups of photographs as KHS Collections or KHS Subject Themes
Latest Images uploaded to Flickr
KHS on FlickrFor more information before you go to a flickr link view some tips here about KHS on Flickr (Here on this site)
KHS PhotoStream - http://www.flickr.com/photos/khs-museum/ (on Flickr)
KHS Group Photographic Pools
KHS would like to share some of the great new images that people have been sharing with KHS to make this ACCESSIBLE to You! You too can share your images in two of the new Public
Group Photo Pools that KHS has started on Flickr.
"Have You Lived in Kununurra?"
http://www.flickr.com/groups/have-you-lived-in-kununurra/
& Have You Lived in the Kimberley?Kimberley Images and Histories
| Themed Sets and Archive Collections
Various themes in photographic collections from the Kununurra Historical Society Digital Archive  Wyndham Six Mile Hotel |
