Apoinga is a rural locality in the
Mid North region of
South Australia, situated in the
Regional Council of Goyder.
The area was originally the territory of the
Ngadjuri
The Ngadjuri people are a group of Aboriginal Australian people whose traditional lands lie in the mid north of South Australia with a territory extending from Gawler in the south to Orroroo in the Flinders Ranges in the north.
Name
Their ethnon ...
people.
The cadastral
Hundred of Apoinga
County of Burra is a cadastral unit located in the Australian state of South Australia which covers land located in the state’s east associated with the town of Burra. It was proclaimed in 1851 by Governor Young and named after the town of ...
was proclaimed on 7 August 1851 by Governor
Henry Young. It is believed to be a corruption of "appinga", a name of a local Aboriginal tribe.
The hundred had its own local government, the
District Council of Apoinga
The District Council of Apoinga was a local government area in South Australia from 1873 to 1932.
The council was proclaimed on 6 November 1873. It opened council chambers at Logan Gap on 23 September 1876, at a cost of £78/10-. The main busines ...
, from 1873 to 1932; however, the council seat was at Logan Gap.
The Apoinga Lutheran Church opened on 10 July 1936 in the former Apoinga School, but the congregation relocated to the Black Springs Church (a former Anglican church) in 1963.
The modern locality was established in August 2000, when boundaries were formalised for the "long established local name". A portion of Apoinga was severed and added to
Emu Downs on 20 August 2015 to resolve an access problem. The locality is much smaller than the cadastral hundred, consisting of a north–south strip along part of the hundred's western border.
The historic former
Apoinga Hotel
Apoinga is a rural locality in the Mid North region of South Australia, situated in the Regional Council of Goyder.
The area was originally the territory of the Ngadjuri people. The cadastral Hundred of Apoinga was proclaimed on 7 August 185 ...
and the
Apoinga Smelter Site (the former Penny's Smelting Works) on Tothill Belt Road are listed on the
South Australian Heritage Register. The smelter was established at Apoinga in 1848 by Messrs Penny and Owen. Until then, ore from the copper mines at
Burra was transported to
Port Adelaide
Port Adelaide is a port-side region of Adelaide, approximately northwest of the Adelaide CBD. It is also the namesake of the City of Port Adelaide Enfield council, a suburb, a federal and state electoral division and is the main port for the ...
and shipped to
Swansea
Swansea (; cy, Abertawe ) is a coastal city and the second-largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Swansea ( cy, links=no, Dinas a Sir Abertawe).
The city is the twenty-fifth largest in ...
in
Wales for smelting. Establishing smelters in Australia could reduce the cost of producing copper ingots. There was no supply of coal known in South Australia to fuel a smelter. Penny believed he had a process of smelting ore using a smelter fueled by charcoal made from the abundant timber supplies in the area. Apoinga was on the road from Burra to Adelaide. The smelter produced its first copper in January 1849, but had closed by 1852 as the miners moved to the
Victorian gold rush.
References
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Towns in South Australia
Mid North (South Australia)