Roebourne

Roebourne is the grand-daddy of Pilbara towns, an old gold rush town in Western Australia's Pilbara region.

Rosebourne prospered during its gold boom of the late 19th century and was once the biggest settlement between Darwin and Perth.

Settled in 1866, Roebourne is WA’s oldest surviving town north of Geraldton. It served as the administrative centre for the Shire of Roebourne (previously the Roebourne Roads Board) until 1975, when operations were transferred to Karratha. Roebourne has continued to develop and is a thriving hub for Aboriginal enterprise and culture.


Roebourne Gaol

Roebourne Gaol, in Queen St, is now a combination Visitor Centre, historical museum (indicating what life was like for prisoners in the late 19th century), and local art and craft centre. This building was one of colonial architect George Temple Poole's first projects in Roebourne and work commenced in 1886 when four stone cells were built. These are now in ruins at the rear of the complex. Further gaol buildings were added in the next few years and local stone was used for both aesthetic and practical reasons. Ph (08) 9182 1060.


Cossack

Emma Withnell Heritage Trail

This 52-km driving and walking tour of the region commences at the Gaol and takes in Wickham, Cossack and Point Samson (see entry on Wickham). The associated brochure provides a detailed guide to the significant heritage buildings of the region, including the Union Bank (1888) - the first official bank building in the North West, and the Post Office (1887).


Holy Trinity Church

Another interesting building in the town is the Holy Trinity Church in Withnell Street. A simple building of local stone it was constructed in 1894 and for years was the only place of worship in the Pilbara.


Roebourne Police Station

A notable feature of Temple Poole?s architecture, evident in the Police Station, is his use of verandahs which suggests an understanding of tropical conditions. Although he had not long been in Western Australia he had spent some time in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and understood the value of a wide verandah around a building to provide shelter from the heat and glare of the hot north west sun.


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Where is it?

202 km from Port Hedland; 1,563 km north of Perth; 39 kilometres south of Karratha, on the banks of the Harding River.


Millstream-Chichester National Park

Located 150 km south of Roebourne, via the Roebourne-Wittenoom Rd, this 200,000-ha park occupies land around the tree-lined Fortescue River (where canoeing can be enjoyed) and Millstream Creek amid the Chichester Range, which emerges quite dramatically from the coastal plain, creating a landscape of escarpments and rolling hills. Fishing, camping and picnicking can all be enjoyed here. Millstream has toilets, gas barbecues, picnic tables, a telephone, disabled access and unboiled water. Charming Chinderwarriner Pool, surrounded by palm trees and paperbarks, is situated nearby.

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History

The town was established in 1866 after Francis T. Gregory had explored the coastline in 1861. Gregory?s favourable reports on the area encouraged settlement by pastoralists. The first European settlers to arrive in the area were Walter Padbury and John Wellard in 1863. The following year the Withnells arrived. The local heritage trail is named after Emma Withnell (she was the cousin of Francis Gregory) who was the first woman settler in the Pilbara and is known as 'Mother of the North West'.

The welfare of the local Aborigines took an unpleasant turn at Roebourne when in the 1860s an outbreak of smallpox occurred which decimated the local population. It was during this unhappy time that Emma Withnell became involved with the local people nursing them as best she could. She was later admitted to the tribe.

Roebourne's moment of glory came in the 1880s when gold was discovered in the Pilbara at Marble Bar and Nullagine. It remained the most important coastal centre in the Pilbara until 1912 when the construction of a railway from Marble Bar to Port Hedland ensured the immediate decline of Roebourne, Cossack and Point Samson.

However the period from about 1885 until 1912 saw the town blossom. Most of the interesting buildings in the town date from this time. The complex which consists of the Gaol, Court House and Police Barracks (all situated off Carnarvon Terrace as you enter the town from the North West Coastal Highway) is fascinating and stands in stark contrast to the rest of the town.

Until the 1960s, Roebourne was a non-indigenous town operating as a regional administrative centre, and strict controls and curfews were placed on the movement of Aboriginal people to, from and within the town - they were mostly confined to camps and reserves a few kilometres away.

However, with the construction of company towns (Dampier, Wickham, etc.) for their workers by mining companies who had moved in to exploit the iron ore in the region, the decline of pastoralism in the region, and changing attitudes to Aboriginal welfare at governmental level in the late 1960s, Roebourne became essentially an Aboriginal town as people moved out of the crowded camps and reserves, and from the outlying stations.

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