Outback Family History Reader, Gary Cowans, recently sent in the following wonderful photographs from his PMG collection. They are reproduced with his permission.
Eucla 1904 Building
To build the East-West telegraph Line supplies were dropped off at the nearby Eucla Jetty. Then the Post and Telegraph crews began the job of scaling the nearby sand-hills before following the route taken by explorer Edward John Eyre along the tops of the Bunda Cliffs and across the Nullarbor Plain. In South Australia, workers unloaded supplies at Fowlers Bay and began constructing their own telegraph station before branching out West.
Eucla 1909 Auto telegraph repeater
The West Australians used jarrah while the South Australians opted for tubular metal telegraph poles and at 4pm on the 8th of December 1877, the first telegraphic message flashed across the Nullarbor. Eucla Telegraph Station was the largest station on the 1877 East-West Telegraph line, and acted as a transfer point of telegraphic messages between South Australia and Western Australia from 1896 to 1905, when the operations were amalgamated under the Western Australian Post and Telegraph Department.
Camel Train At Eucla
Eucla Telegraph Station 1898
The Combined Telegraph Operating Staff of West and South Australia.
Eucla Linesmen 1923
5240 messages Dec 1903
Moya Sharp
Hello Moya, the photo of the telegraphist with the stack of telegrams is my wife’s Great Grandfather Albert Clayer – we have a better copy – he was there in the early 1900s with his wife Clara, and daughter (stepdaughter) Leila Doreen who was the only white child at the time – we also have a photo (you probably have this) of the entire staff on Christmas day 1902 and baby Leila is sitting on Albert’s lap with Clara to his right. There was also apparently another telegraphist with the surname Brown (I think) who we’ve just found out was a distant cousin from a completely different branch of my wife’s family. As a comms tech, I found it extremely interesting and we visited the Eucla station and museum in 2001.
Hi Keith May I add those details to the post?
Is there a map of the 1877 east-west telegraph line from Albany to Eucla?
thank you.
This is a rough map but not very detailed Im afraid.https://www.google.com.au/maps/search/telegraph+line+from+Albany+to+Eucla/@-33.0448002,118.9444244,6z/data=!3m1!4b1
Hi there, I’ve recently been chatting with my father about our family history. He didn’t know his real surname until he was 18 (Austin) he tried finding info an his biological farther an found he was born in Eucla an with no info on his father except surname (Sproll)
would you have any info or doc on surnames
*Austin or *Sproll
Thanks for reading.. this is my first attempt of finding any info so im aware or tools an ways to find info just seen this an thought I’d msg (,