Andamooka, South Australia
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Andamooka South Australia |
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 Andamooka
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| Coordinates | 30°26′S 137°10′E / 30.433°S 137.167°ECoordinates: 30°26′S 137°10′E / 30.433°S 137.167°E | ||||||||||||
| Population | 592 (2011 census) | ||||||||||||
| Established | 1920s | ||||||||||||
| Postcode(s) | 5722 | ||||||||||||
| Elevation | 76 m (249 ft) | ||||||||||||
| Location | 600 km (373 mi) N of Adelaide | ||||||||||||
| LGA(s) | Outback Communities Authority | ||||||||||||
| Region | Far North | ||||||||||||
| State electorate(s) | Giles | ||||||||||||
| Federal Division(s) | Grey | ||||||||||||
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| Footnotes | Adjoining localities | ||||||||||||
Andamooka is a town approximately 600 km north of Adelaide in the Far North of South Australia. Andamooka is the largest town administered by the Outback Communities Authority instead of a local government area. It is in the state electoral district of Giles and the federal Division of Grey.
The name is derived from a salt lake, named from the Aboriginal 'Andemorka', by which the locality was known to Europeans as early as 1866, well before opal was discovered. The meaning is uncertain. At that time (1866) it was also known as 'Swinden's Country', after Charles Swinden of Riverton, the leader of the small horseback party which discovered it in 1857. They described it as a tract of 'generally sterile country, but having some patches of good pastoral land'. It was those meagre prospects which attracted pastoralists, resulting in the foundation of Andamooka Station, which for the next half century was the only industry.
Opal was discovered there in 1930, and the town developed out of the scattered miners' camps which established in the area. An Andamooka Opal Fields Post Office was not opened until 13 January 1947, and was renamed Andamooka in 1990. The road into Andamooka was sealed in the 1990s, but the remaining roads in the town are still unsealed.
A number of historic buildings in the town are heritage-listed: the Andamooka Historic Precinct (containing Frank Albertoni's House, Bob Cutzow's Dugout, Tom Brady's Dugout, Mrs Perry's Kitchen and Andy Absalom's House) and Dick Clark's Residence are both listed on the South Australian Heritage Register.
There are numerous opal fields in Andamooka district, one of the principal outliers being White Dam. The original pick and shovel shaft miners, many of whom were the bush characters and social outcasts who gave the settlement a 'Wild West' reputation, were gradually displaced from the 1960s and 70s by the arrival of miners using bulldozers which made deep cuts to reach the respective opal levels, from where horizontal drives could easily be made to fully exploit the level. The several opal levels at Andamooka are not as deep as other fields such as Coober Pedy and Lightning Ridge. However, while the opal may be easier to reach, it is generally scarcer and poorer in quality. Those factors always made this gemfield attractive to smaller prospectors with limited capital. Nevertheless, some remarkable gems have been mined, including the Andamooka Opal which was discovered in and named after Andamooka.
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