YORKETOWN, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

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The principal town at the 'bottom end' of Yorke Peninsula, it is the main service and shopping centre for the surrounding cereal growing district.
Location: 230 km west of Adelaide.
Origin of name: thus named as it was the main settlement on the Yorke Peninsula. The peninsula was named by Matthew Flinders after Philip Yorke, 3rd Earl of Hardwicke (1757-1834), Member of the British Parliament for Cambridgeshire, later for Liskenard. Yorke became First Lord of the Admiralty in 1810. The number of salt lakes in the area led a local to lobby for the town to be renamed Salt Lake City but the bid failed.
Brief history: first settled by Europeans in the late 1840s by a group of farmers who exploited the region's grain growing potential. In 1872 the town was surveyed and the first town lots were sold.
Natural features: Daly Head (50 km west - surf beach); salt lakes (Lake Fowler salt lake, 1.6 km long, 107 m wide); Bear Rock and Clown Rock granite outcrops.
Built features: toy factory; Yorketown motor museum; settlements of Rogers Corner; Oaklands; Port Moorowie (former grain port).
Heritage features: Yorke Hotel (1876); St. Columbia's Catholic Church (1903).