Tantanoola is a town in regional

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 ...

. The name is derived from the aboriginal word ''tentunola'', which means ''boxwood / brushwood hill or camp''. ''Tantanoola'' was originally named 'Lucieton' by Governor Jervois after his daughter Lucy Caroline, on 10 July 1879. It was changed by Governor Robinson to 'Tantanoola' on 4 October 1888. At the , Tantanoola had a population of 255. Tantanoola is in the

Wattle Range Council Wattle Range Council is a local government area in the Limestone Coast region of South Australia. It stretches from the coast at Beachport east to the Victorian border. It had a population of over 11,000 as at the 2016 Census. The council is ...

local government area A local government area (LGA) is an administrative division of a country that a local government is responsible for. The size of an LGA varies by country but it is generally a subdivision of a State (administrative division), state, province, divi ...

, the

South Australian House of Assembly The House of Assembly, or lower house, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of South Australia. The other is the Legislative Council. It sits in Parliament House in the state capital, Adelaide. Overview The House of Assembly was creat ...

electoral districts of MacKillop and

Mount Gambier Mount Gambier is the second most populated city in South Australia, with an estimated urban population of 33,233 . The city is located on the slopes of Mount Gambier, a volcano in the south east of the state, about south-east of the capital Ad ...

, and the

Australian House of Representatives The House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of Australia, the upper house being the Senate. Its composition and powers are established in Chapter I of the Constitution of Australia. The term of members of the ...

Division of Barker The Division of Barker is an Australian Electoral Division in the south-east of South Australia. The division was established on 2 October 1903, when South Australia's original single multi-member division was split into seven single-member div ...

. The primary school closed in July 2020 after the farcical situation of having more staff than students. The remaining students transferred to nearby schools in Millicent and

History

The township of Tantanoola is situated in the

Hundred of Hindmarsh The Hundred of Hindmarsh is a cadastral unit of hundred in covering much of the locality of Tantanoola, South Australia, including the township. It is one of the 21 hundreds of the County of Grey located within the former Tantanoola Drainage Dist ...

, 425 km south east of

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

, and was once a portion of Mayurra Station. It was the second town of importance on the Mount Gambier to Rivoli Bay railway line which was built in 1878, converted from narrow to broad gauge in 1957 and ceased operating to freight in April 1995 then Limestone Coast Railway tourist passengers on 1 July 2006 which spanned across 128 years between Tantanoola and Mount Gambier. The historic

Tantanoola railway station Tantanoola is a town in regional South Australia. The name is derived from the aboriginal word ''tentunola'', which means ''boxwood / brushwood hill or camp''. ''Tantanoola'' was originally named 'Lucieton' by Governor Jervois after his daughte ...

is listed on the

South Australian Heritage Register The South Australian Heritage Register, also known as the SA Heritage Register, is a statutory register of historic places in South Australia. It extends legal protection regarding demolition and development under the ''Heritage Places Act 1993'' ...

Tantanoola Tiger

left, Caves near Tantanoola Tantanoola is known for the Tantanoola Tiger, a

phantom cat Phantom cats, also known as Alien Big Cats (ABCs), are large felids such as leopards, jaguars and cougars which allegedly appear in regions outside their indigenous range. Sightings, tracks and predation have been reported in a number of countrie ...

which supposedly stalked the area during the late nineteenth century. In August 1895 an animal was shot by one Thomas John Donovan, which was believed to have been the mysterious predator. The animal turned out to be more like a

wolf The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, and gray wolves, as popularly u ...

than a

cat The cat (''Felis catus'') is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and is commonly referred to as the domestic cat or house cat to distinguish it from the wild members of ...

. Later, it was determined to be an

Arabian wolf The Arabian wolf (''Canis lupus arabs'') is a subspecies of gray wolf native to the Arabian Peninsula, the Negev Desert, the Sinai Peninsula, and Jordan. It is the smallest wolf subspecies, and a desert-adapted subspecies that normally lives i ...

, although how it arrived in South Australia has been the subject of a number of theories. It is currently preserved and on display at the Tantanoola Hotel (which is also known colloquially as the ''Tantanoola Tiger Hotel'').

Tantanoola Caves Conservation Park The Tantanoola Caves Conservation Park is a protected area near Tantanoola in the Limestone Coast tourism region in the south-east of South Australia. The conservation park preserves two main caves; the wheelchair accessible Tantanoola Cave which ...

, featuring a spectacular dolomite cave is located nearby. Australian poet Max Harris wrote a poem titled "The Tantanoola Tiger", which is included in the collection '' The Angry Penguin: the Poetry of Max Harris'', published by the

National Library of Australia The National Library of Australia (NLA), formerly the Commonwealth National Library and Commonwealth Parliament Library, is the largest reference library in Australia, responsible under the terms of the ''National Library Act 1960'' for "mainta ...

Snuggery

The next station northwest along the railway line was Snuggery. Snuggery is not recognised as a separate town, but is part of Tantanoola towards Millicent. The area includes the

Snuggery Power Station Snuggery Power Station is a power station near Tantanoola in the Limestone Coast region of South Australia. It was built in 1978. It is now owned by Synergen Power, a subsidiary of Engie Energy International. The power station has a generating ...

with three diesel-powered gas turbines, and the

Kimberly-Clark Kimberly-Clark Corporation is an American multinational personal care corporation that produces mostly paper-based consumer products. The company manufactures sanitary paper products and surgical & medical instruments. Kimberly-Clark brand n ...

woodchip and paper pulp mill. The pulp mill was commissioned in 1992 but ceased operations in 2011. It was demolished in November 2012.

References

{{authority control Towns in South Australia Limestone Coast

History

Tantanoola Tiger

Snuggery

See also

References