Wallaroo Information

Wallaroo offers the traveller many facilities and a variety of accommodation, as well as the many different experiences to enjoy in the area. The town today is a mix of a seaside resort and a working industrial town, surrounded by some of the best grain growing and grazing land in Australia, and the sea. The main industries today include grain and fertilizer. Wallaroo fast became one of the busiest ports in the state and remains so to this day.

Robert Miller first settled the area in 1851 as a sheep grazier; he then sold the land to Walter Watson Hughes in 1857. The land at this time was scrubby Mulga and not of much use for anything but grazing. In 1859 copper was discovered in the Kadina region. Two shepherds working for Hughes found the copper, James Boor in 1859 at Wallaroo and Patrick Ryan in Moonta 1861, in a wombat's hole. The first copper smelter was lit in 1861 at Wallaroo. Copper mining soon became a huge industry and the township of Wallaroo grew rapidly. With the population in 1865 being 3,000, by 1909 it had grown to 4,000, and reached 5,000 in 1920. In the town today there is much evidence of this prosperous era. The township of Wallaroo was formally proclaimed in 1862, from 1861-1923 the port was the most important on the Yorke Peninsula and the largest and most important on the Spencer Gulf until 1890 when Port Pirie built large smelters. The production of copper ceased in the Copper Coast in the 1920's, and the town population started to decline after this.

The jetty in Wallaroo was built 1861; ships brought to the port food, timber, coal and mining equipment. The first load of refined copper was shipped from Wallaroo in 1862 and by 1868 over 100 tons were been produced each week.