The Story of Alice Springs

Alice Springs is nestled within the MacDonnell Range, which is composed of orange rocks and protruding desert vegetation. It was interesting to contrast the acacias and spinifex grass of Alice Springs’ Olive Pink Botanical Gardens to the lush rainforest plants of the Cairns gardens. This desert garden is home to wildlife as well – we quietly watched a kangaroo and saw a beautiful desert bird which had a green belly, yellow ring around its neck, and purple/blue plumage around its head.

As we walked along the wide and dry Todd River to the Alice Springs telegraph station it amazed us how quickly it became quiet and how few people we passed as we headed away from the town center. The Todd River was not much of a river at all – it had receded into a few scattered waterholes. Apparently early European explorers, who came to survey the telegraph line, first came across the river after it had recently flowed and numerous waterholes had been replenished. They mistook these waterholes for natural springs and named one of them Alice Spring after Charles Todd’s wife. Charles Todd was the superintendent of telegraphs in Adelaide, South Australia. His wife never did see the place named after her.

Our knowledgeable and true-blue tour guide soon introduced us to the rest of the telegraph station. After just crossing the desert by bus it was amazing to think of numerous Australian exploration parties who crossed the unknown interior of the continent in order to plan the best route for the telegraph line. They carried all of their supplies on horseback - relying on compasses and hand-drawn maps they produced themselves. Planning a telegraph line required that they scout out and find openings or passes through the Mac Donnell ranges and avoid crocodiles and tidal creeks in the tropical top end. The future telegraph stations needed to be self-sufficient and in order to achieve this permanent sources of water were required at each of the eleven repeater stations, which exist to amplify the signal along the way from Adelaide to Darwin. It’s no surprise that the stations have names such as Alice Springs, Barrow Creek, and Daly Waters. The telegraph line is not completely straight, but instead gently meanders in order to intersect permanent sources of water. South Australia won the commission for building the line as their group of explorers was the first to reach the top end. The ill-fated group from Victoria, composed of Burke, Wills, and several other men ended in death and despair.

The telegraph line was constructed in just two years without the use of heavy machinery or fancy technology. The work groups had to preserver through intense heat and cold desert nights, monsoonal rains in the top end, and all the deadly Australian flora and fauna. The wire was made of un-insulated iron string across wooden poles which soon had to be replaced by metal poles due to termite action and frequent fires. At the top of each pole the wire was capped with a ceramic insulator, which local Aboriginal people soon learned made excellent spear tips when the ceramic was cracked and broken.

The upkeep of telegraph stations was enormous. Lines were constantly snapped and insulators had to be replaced. Eventually, old broken insulators were placed at the bottom of poles to dissuade Aboriginal people from climbing to the top of the pole to retrieve insulators and fashion them into spear tips. The telegraph stations were powered by a huge set of batteries that was large enough to fill a house. A mixture of lead-acid batteries and glass batteries were used to amplify the incoming signal and then send the outgoing signal. The lead plates and acid had to be routinely changed and a spare set of batteries was always on stand-by in case the first set malfunctioned.

The staff who lived at the station had to adapt to a life of extreme isolation. The nearest big city was 100’s of kilometers away and they were the only people of European descent for 100’s of kilometers. As bushmen, they had to do many tasks for themselves. The blacksmith was responsible for not only shoeing the horses but also taking care of the cattle and sheep. Since he was good at treating animals – lancing sores, pulling teeth, and monitoring infections – he was also the unofficial dentist. And since the nearest doctor was over 1000 km away in Adelaide, several days journey by horse in which you had a high probability of dying from heat stroke and lack of water, the blacksmith served as the doctor as well. The stationmaster was the man of highest respect and education for 100’s of km, so in addition to sending Morse code messages he also served as the police chief, judge, bailiff, and mediator. One of the more common crimes involved Aboriginal people hunting and killing cattle. Aboriginal people had a system of land rights which Europeans refused to acknowledge or failed to recognize. Basically they owned any animal which happened to pass through their land. Unfortunately, for these actions they were rounded up, put in leg shackles, and driven to prison in Adelaide by horse. Often they did not understand why they were being taken away from their family and country and did not know when or if they would return. Once their prison sentence was up they were released from jail and were completely on their own in terms of making their way back home.

Running a station also required food and other supplies. However, the Afghan cameliers who transported the various goods only passed through once a year. So the stationmaster and his wife would often spend months preparing their list and trying to anticipate everything they might need. A governess was required for the stationmaster’s children – she was coveted not only for her teaching abilities but also for her good looks since she was the only single white female for many kilometers. However, the stationmaster had much incentive to prevent romances from flourishing – if the governess got married and moved off the station it would be difficult to find another governess to fill the remaining contract.

I imagine that work in the telegraph room was very tedious for the stationmasters and his assistants. They were constantly transcribing messages about engagements, weddings, births, deaths, business transactions, and government activity. Maybe they secretly looked forward to times when the line was broken and they were relieved from their duties. Or maybe they got special satisfaction from knowing that Australia was directly connected to the rest of the world. Messages could now be sent in hours instead of the months it previously took by sea. People were encouraged to settle in central Australia now that it was less isolated.

We took our time looking at the buildings which composed the telegraph station – the stationmaster’s residence, barracks, buggy shed, store room, battery room, and shoeing yards. We were impressed that the government even moved a piano to the middle of the desert. Eventually the telegraph station became such a major thoroughfare that a small village developed. The number of women and children grew so much that the new town of Alice Springs was established a few kilometers away.