Nackara (formerly Tregu) is a locality and former farming town in

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 ...

, 47 kilometres east of

Peterborough Peterborough () is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, east of England. It is the largest part of the City of Peterborough unitary authority district (which covers a larger area than Peterborough itself). It was part of Northamptonshire until ...

on the

Barrier Highway Barrier Highway is a highway in South Australia and New South Wales, and is designated part of route A32. The name of the highway is derived from the Barrier Ranges, an area of moderately high ground in the far west of New South Wales, through w ...

. It was originally proclaimed as the Government Town of Tregu on 2 July 1891 but the name was changed to Nackara in 1940 to match the name of the railway station.

History

The Nackara 'township' was created as a railway siding on the

(

) to

Broken Hill Broken Hill is an inland mining city in the far west of outback New South Wales, Australia. It is near the border with South Australia on the crossing of the Barrier Highway (A32) and the Silver City Highway (B79), in the Barrier Range. It is ...

(

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

) train line which was completed in approximately 1888, mainly to transport the ore from the Broken Hill mines to the South Australian port(s). The town was planned to have several streets with

suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include commercial and mixed-use, that is primarily a residential area. A suburb can exist either as part of a larger city/urban area or as a separate ...

an style yards, however this never eventuated. The Nackara township never consisted of more than a few railway cottages, a town store/post office (part of a house), a community hall ('The Nackara Institute'), a Catholic church, a

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Church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * Chris ...

, a

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, the

railway platform A railway platform is an area alongside a railway track providing convenient access to trains. Almost all stations have some form of platform, with larger stations having multiple platforms. The world's longest station platform is at Hubbali ...

, cattle yards and cemetery. The planned roads didn't ever eventuate, with only dirt tracks through the very dry paddocks. The community consisted of families from the surrounding grazing land, and the railway workers. While the township never grew as planned, the community did have many social events such as picnics, town dances and concerts, annual horse races, and car races. The town also competed against the other local towns in at least

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and

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. The local population were mainly immigrants (many

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s from

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and several

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families), and mainly worked as sheep and cattle graziers, railway workers, wood carters, shearers and labourers. There was a vibrant local Catholic community who had annual Catholic Picnics to raise money to erect a Catholic church. The church (St. Patrick's) was a small church built of stone on the top of the hill overlooking the Nackara township.

Current

The area is too dry to support much livestock, so Nackara never grew beyond around 20 families and the township didn't develop. After the railway was realigned several kilometres to the south around the 1960s, the town practically died. There are only several graziers left in the area now. Nackara School and the disused Nackara Institute (community hall) are all that remain standing within the Nackara township. The school is now a private residence. The (corrugated iron)

church has gone, the Catholic Church was demolished (around the 1960s), the main store (home and post office) is now stone rubble with a chimney.

References

{{authority control Ghost towns in South Australia