Historic Homes

Historic Arltunga in Outback Central Australia
By Miguel Scaccialupo

Arltunga, located about 120 km east of Alice Springs in the Eastern MacDonnell Ranges, was the first town to be built in Central Australia. Established around 1887, this historic mining town is today a ghost town which has been well preserved by the dryness of the surrounding desert environment, with many of the original stone buildings remaining in excellent condition. Named after a subgroup of the indigenous Arrernte people who had been living in the area for at least 22,000 years prior to the arrival of Europeans in Australia, Arltunga is today located within the 5000 hectare Arltunga Historical Reserve.

In common with many Australian towns, Arltunga was essentially the product of a gold rush. Passing through the area during his journey from Port Darwin to the South Australian coast in 1887, the South Australian explorer David Lindsay and noted that there appeared to be rubies in the Arltunga area. In the same year, alluvial gold was discovered in a dry creek bed downstream of Paddy's Rock hole, and miners immediately began arriving in the area. Both alluvial and reef gold deposits were worked for several years in the early 1890s, but the town was largely deserted by 1896, when the alluvial gold had all but disappeared. The construction of the Government Battery and Cyanide Works in Arltunga in 1898, following the successfully petitioning of the South Australian Government by miners, kept the town active until about 1916. At its height, Arltunga supported a population of some 3000 people. By 1911, the population of the town was 56 and this had dropped to 25 in 1933. The basic problems which conspired to make permanent settlement difficult in Arltunga are still clearly evident today - lack of water, isolation and the difficulty of access.