Bute is a town in the Northern Yorke peninsula of

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

, approximately east of

Wallaroo Wallaroo is a common name for several species of moderately large macropods, intermediate in size between the kangaroos and the wallabies. The word "wallaroo" is from the Dharug ''walaru'', and not a portmanteau of the words "kangaroo" and "wal ...

and 24 kilometres west of Snowtown. It was proclaimed as a town in 1884 and named after the

Isle of Bute The Isle of Bute ( sco, Buit; gd, Eilean Bhòid or '), known as Bute (), is an island in the Firth of Clyde in Scotland, United Kingdom. It is divided into highland and lowland areas by the Highland Boundary Fault. Formerly a constituent is ...

, in the

Firth of Clyde The Firth of Clyde is the mouth of the River Clyde. It is located on the west coast of Scotland and constitutes the deepest coastal waters in the British Isles (it is 164 metres deep at its deepest). The firth is sheltered from the Atlantic ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

. It was the original site of the Yorke Peninsula Field Days in 1895; they are now held outside

Paskeville Paskeville is a town on South Australia's Yorke Peninsula. It is located approximately 20 km east of Kadina on the Copper Coast Highway towards Adelaide. At the , Paskeville had a population of 178. The town's district is administratively ...

History

The cadastral Hundred of Wiltunga and Hundred of Ninnes were proclaimed in the

County of Daly The County of Daly is one of the 49 cadastral counties of South Australia. It was proclaimed in 1862 and named for Governor Dominick Daly. It covers the northern half of Yorke Peninsula stretching just east of the Hummock-Barunga Range in the w ...

in 1874 to enable closer settlement of the area between the Barunga-

Hummock Range The Hummocks or Hummock Range is a range of hills in the northern Mount Lofty Ranges extending north from the eastern edge of Yorke Peninsula in South Australia. It is traversed by the Copper Coast Highway immediately west of where it passes arou ...

s and the coast-side copper-mining communities of Kadina,

and Moonta. In 1882 land in the Hundred of Wiltunga was sold to pioneer grain-growing farmers for between £1 and £1/2/6 per acre. The Government Town of Bute was town surveyed near the southern boundary of the Hundred of Wiltunga in September 1883 and officially named by Governor William Robinson on 13 March 1884. In 1888, the town of Bute and surrounding hundred of Wiltunga was annexed by the

District Council of Ninnes Ninnes is the name of several places: * Ninnes, Cornwall * Ninnes Bridge, Cornwall * Ninnes, South Australia, locality and former village ** District Council of Ninnes, former local government ** Hundred of Ninnes, cadastral division {{geodi ...

, bringing local government administration to the township for the first time. In October 1879 the Brinkworth–Kadina railway line was opened with Bute being at the siding. The next siding towards Kadina on the railway was originally called "15-mile camp" or "16-mile Siding" and later Mona. While the railway was being constructed, some competition existed between Mona and Bute as to which rail-side settlement would become the prime business centre to serve residents, but by 1886 Bute was clearly dominant, being home to a church and school and having had a hotel license granted. In addition to Mona, by the turn of the century, the suburbs of Bute East, Bute South and Bute West existed adjacent to Bute, outside the limits of the original government town. In 1933 the Ninnes council was renamed to the District Council of Bute given that, by then, the township of Bute had far outgrown Ninnes to the south. From 1895 until about 1973, the Yorke Peninsula Field Day event was held at Bute. By 1935 a state-of-the-art aerodrome had been laid down immediately north of the town and become headquarters to the North-Western Aero Club. From the late 1990s a tourist train traversed the by-then-disused railway line from Wallaroo to Bute, but this closed in 2009. In 1998 the boundaries of contemporary Bute were formalised. Bute East, Bute South, Bute West and Mona were all absorbed along with a huge swathe of surrounding farmland to form the new bounded locality of Bute, which occupies approximately the south-eastern two thirds of the Hundred of Wiltunga.

Attractions

Attractions to the town include the nearby Bute tannery, Bute Hobbies Bromeliad Display Gardens and the Bute Hotel. A free-to-view fauna park on the Snowtown Road is maintained by the Bute

Lions Club The International Association of Lions Clubs, more commonly known as Lions Clubs International, is an international non-political service organization established originally in 1916 in Chicago, Illinois, by Melvin Jones. It is now headquartere ...

. Visitors can view emus, peacocks, waterfowl, red kangaroos and other wildlife contained within fenced enclosures. The park also features barbecue facilities and picnic areas. The town is surrounded by agricultural and pastoral land.

References

External links

Yorke Peninsula website
{{authority control Towns in South Australia