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Cordillo Downs, South Australia


Cordillo Downs or Cordillo Downs Station is both a pastoral lease currently operating as a cattle station and a formal bounded locality in South Australia. It is located about 116 kilometres (72 mi) north of Innamincka and 155 kilometres (96 mi) south east of Birdsville. The name and boundaries of the locality were created on 26 April 2013 for the long established local name.

The station once occupied an area of 7,800 square kilometres (3,012 sq mi) and was regarded as Australia's largest sheep station (in the 1880s, Cordillo set a record of shearing over 85,000 sheep in a season).

One of the best known features of the station is the heritage-listed woolshed that is constructed of stone with a curved tin roof, built this way due to a lack of timber in the area. Cordillo gets around 167.3mm of rain annually.

First taken up by John Frazer from Victoria in 1875 the station was initially known as Cardilla. Frazer let the property go in 1878 and a ballot was held, the lease going to Edgar Chapman, who sold off in 1883 to Peter Waite of the Beltana Pastoral Company. The property was stocked with just over 10,000 sheep, nearly 600 cattle and about 30 horses. In 1903 the property was amalgamated with two other stations, Cadelga and Haddon Downs, and had a flock of around 85,000 by 1905. The homestead was abandoned for a few years during the 1930s.

A plague of rats swept across the property from further north in Queensland in 1940, they were prevented from making it further south by the flooded Cooper Creek.

Cattle replaced sheep on the station in 1942 when the manager, Mr Napier, decided that the wild dogs that were prevalent in the area and were inside the boundary fence at the time would cause less damage.


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