75 Years of Ord Irrigation

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Kununurra Historical Society (KHS)

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1st Tuesday of the Month
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All Welcome!

Remembering Them - A Grave in the Long Grass

This exhibition opened at the Kununurra Museum on May 5th 2018.

2018 marked the centenary of the end of World War I and these exhibitions were initially researched and devised locally, then, with thanks to further research by the Royal WA Historical Society, the panels were professionally designed with collaboration between each Society (Kununurra & Wyndham) and staff of the WA Museum and Museums & Galleries Australia WA. There is also a museum quality showcase for each of the Kununurra and Wyndham Museums.

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 go 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.

For more detail see the Kununurra Events Page at...
http://www.kununurra.org.au/events

1942

"Wirraway Challenge Day"

Kununurra Museum

March 20th 2020

RAAF 12 Sqn. CAC Wirraway A20-62

On March 20th 2017 it was...

75 Years...

...since the forced landing of RAAF 12 Squadron CAC Wirraway A20-62, on coastal saltmarsh, just inside the WA/NT border, by Pilots Lew Dwyer and Warwick Carmody. Watch the Digital Videos (DVs) from the KHS - "A Story of Survival & Rescue in the far north-east Kimberley"

Read & see more from the KHS "Wirraway - Challenge" Research Page (has links to all 8 parts of the DVs on the "Kununurra Museum" YouTube Channel OR See the permanent display at the Kununurra Museum.

1944

1944 (Dry Season)

75 Years Ago in 2019

Experimental Irrigation continues at Carlton Reach

Ord River Experimental Station

On March 31st 1941 Kim Durack published his paper, 'Developing the North - Proposed Research Station for the Kimberleys', and before the end of that year the "Ord River Experimental Station," was established at Carlton Reach using the waters of the Ord for irrigation. In 1942 agricultural experiments began with the first irrigation in June that year. 75 years ago in 1944 experimentation continued and widened, as shown in regular reports by Kimberley Michael Durack that we have in the archive. The station would operate on the Carlton Reach Site for five years and all would be moved to the Kimberley Research Station site in 1946.

More information is available about the 36 HP Petters "Atomic" diesel pump engine (Now at front of Kununurra Museum), used to raise the water for these first major experimental attempts at irrigation, at the twenty acre farm site. available from the Carlton Reach Pump Engine (On this site)

ABC Kimberley Radio Interview (March 2013) - About the "Petters Atomic Diesel Engine - See http://www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2013/03/18/3718139.htm?site=kimberley

In April 2013 the 36 HP "Petters Atomic Diesel Engine" was donated to the Kununurra Historical Society by the Department of Agriculture and Food WA - Frank Wise Institute of Tropical Agriculture (formerly the Kimberley Research Station, where the engine was also in use until the 1950s), KHS now has the original pump engine by the entrance gate of the Kununurra Museum.

50 Years Ago - 1969

What was happening 50 Years Ago in Kununurra during 1969?

At the end of 1968 the contracts were awarded for the construction of the Ord River Dam (to Dam). The village was constructed and work began in 1969 - See KHS Archive collections on Flickr for photographs of the time.

Events in 2016

Wyndham and Hall's Creek (aka "Kimberley") were established.

1886

130 Years Ago
(In 2016)

WA-NT Border Determinations

It will be..
100 Years

...in 2021
Since the WA and SA Government Astronomers came to the Kimberley in
1921
to determine the position of the WA/NT Border on the ground by using the new technology of the day (in 1921), of radio time signals. (Yes!, the pips you used to hear before the news! :^) This expedition in 1921 would determine the border position from time signals girdling the earth, from Greenwich UK, Annapolis USA, Applecross WA, SA Observatory & Lyons France - as in how many hours minutes and seconds east of Greenwich they were.

1927 - 100 Years ago in 2027

A WA Survey crew would come back in 1927 to build the Kimberley Obelisk, which still determines the border on the ground today.
Read More about the 1921 WA/NT Border Determinations

1961

Township of Kununurra
Resumption of Ivanhoe Stn. Land
February 10th 1961
Town of Kununurra Declaration

In 2011 KHS helped commemorate

50 Years of Kununurra as a Gazetted Town

Top (Top of page text start - Starts below header photograph of the Diversion Dam)

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posted 17 Aug 2015, 10:47 by Kununurra Museum [ updated 19 Aug 2015, 08:59 ]

Download - Proposed Research Station for the Kimberleys by KM Durack (1941)

On March 31st 1941 Kimberley Michael Durack (KMD) published a document which would lead to the instigation of an Ord River irrigation research station by the end of the same year. The reference to KMD's paper, titled, 'Developing the North - Proposed Research Station for the Kimberleys', was known from previous KHS research, but not in the archive, then in February 2015, the paper was located then photographed page by page, and since then, these pages have been transcribed by volunteer members of the Kununurra Historical Society (KHS). With the text and images now compiled into a document, with derivative format (PDF) which has now been placed for download (below) – fittingly this will be the first KHS archive to be placed as an online digital archive on the KHS website, to be made accessible to all.
Download KHS archive number KHS-2015-1-H-BD - 'Developing the North - Proposed Research Station for the Kimberleys'

written by KM Durack and published on March 31st 1941. [This will be 75 years ago on March 31st 2016]

KHS hopes you enjoy and we would appreciate any feedback you may have by email ('Contact' above).

[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.]

Passport Photo of Kim Durack (KMD) circa 1947 - Cover of KMD's 1941 Paper

[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.]

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