Tennant Creek Telegraph Station - NT

The Tennant Creek Telegraph Station was built in 1872.

It was first a temporary bush timber building but by 1875 had been rebuilt with locally quarried stone.

It operated as a repeater station as part of the Overland Telegraph Line which connected Darwin to Adelaide. It also operated as a government rations depot. By the 1920s it featured a blacksmith shop, cart shed, ration store, meat house, smokehouse and cellar. Warumungu people were employed at the station as cattlemen and slaughter-men.

The telegraph line changed the Northern Territory forever and provided Australia with its first line to Britain.

It was 3,600km long and follows the steps taken by John McDouall Stuart in 1862.

But during the 1890s there more than 100 Aboriginal people were living at the station. It was declared an Aboriginal Reserve.