Meekatharra - Culture and History

The Aboriginal word 'Meekatharra' is thought to mean 'little water' or 'place of little water' or 'bad watering place' - an accurate description given the town's position on the edge of the desert and its annual rainfall of 200-250 mm.

Like the rest of the East Murchison, Meekatharra came into existence in the 1890s when gold was discovered in the area. By 1891 gold was being mined at both Nannine and Annean Station. The Peak Hill field was opened up in 1892 and by 1894 a ten-head battery had been built to crush and process ore at Garden Gully. It seems the first settlement at Meekatharra occurred in 1894 and that, in May 1896, after the prospectors Meehan, Porter and Soich discovered gold, miners moved to the new settlement from the other East Murchison fields.

Success on the Meekatharra field was short-lived. It was only because a second gold discovery occurred in 1899 that the town survived. In 1901 the Meekatharra State Battery began operation and by Christmas Day 1903 the township had been officially gazetted.

In 1906 Alfred Wernam Canning was appointed to develop a stock route from the East Kimberleys to the Murchison. The stock route, comprising 54 wells, was completed in 1908 and, when the railway arrived in Meekatharra in 1910, the town became the railhead at the end of the route. In many ways the railway ensured the town's survival. In 1910 it took the first shipment of wool out of the area and it continued to serve the local pastoral interests until it was closed down in 1978.

The importance of the town is well captured in Grant Watson's novel The Desert Horizon. Written in 1923 it describes the town as 'which was at that time head of the line, provided the chief Labour Exchange for all the district. Employers came from fifty and even a hundred miles to find labour to shear their sheep or work their mines...all the life of the district converged towards the town'.

While the town experienced a dramatic increase in its population during the goldrushes it was its central location which ensured that it became something more than just another Murchison goldrush town.

In recent times Meekatharra has achieved some fame as the first town in Australia powered by solar energy. Given that it has recorded temperatures of 45°C (in December, 1972) and 30 consecutive days over 100°F in 1956, such a development was sensible. When a solar-diesel power station was built near the town in 1982 it was the largest of its kind in the world.

Equally the town boasts a huge 2181 metre runway (built by the Americans during the war) which is still used as an alternative when the runway in Perth is closed.