Salt Creek is a small settlement 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 ...

, located along the Coorong, and is also the location of the

Coorong National Park Coorong National Park is a protected area located in South Australia about south-east of Adelaide, that predominantly covers a coastal lagoon ecosystem officially known as The Coorong and the Younghusband Peninsula on the Coorong's southern ...

Information Centre.

History

The following brief history of Salt Creek was compiled by the South Australian historian Geoffrey Manning:

... There is another Salt Creek, 61 km South-East of Meningie and, 'early in 1866, Mr John Hodgkiss and others formed a small company with a capital of £500 to test the value of a supposed discovery of petroleum made near the notorious Malacha Martin’s house on the Salt Creek, by Mr W.H. Hamilton': Four men were sent out with 500 feet of boring rods and the oily substance which he had described as scum upon the surface of the water was traceable in various parts of the creek. Extensive claims were taken out and a company was formed to work a substance known as mineral caoutchouc and Mr Eustace R. Mitford was dispatched there.

Boundaries for the locality were created on 24 August 2000 for the " long established name" which is ultimately derived from a stream that flows through the locality on its way to the Coorong.

Oil rig monument

In 1892, a group of entrepreneurs, who believed there was oil located in the Coorong, drilled Australia's first oil well. They were unsuccessful, as it was later discovered that the 'oil' was in fact a flammable, compacted vegetable substance (known as ' coorongite'). A replica of the oil rig has been built as a monument to this enterprise.

References in literature

The novel ''Salt Creek'' by

Lucy Treloar Lucy Treloar is an Australian novelist. Her first novel, ''Salt Creek'', won the 2016 Dobbie Literary Award and was shortlisted for the 2016 Miles Franklin Award and the 2016 Walter Scott Prize. Her second novel, ''Wolfe Island'', won the 2020 ...

is set in the Coorong at Salt Creek in the 1850s and 1860s. It includes references to the ''Travellers' Rest'' Inn, to William and Catherine Robinson, the proprietors, and to Malachi Martin, and the real life murders committed by Martin.

Governance

Salt Creek is located within the federal division of Barker, the state electoral district of MacKillop and the local government area of the

Coorong District Council Coorong District Council is a local government area in South Australia located between the River Murray and the Limestone Coast region. The district cover mostly rural areas with small townships, as well as part of the Coorong National Park. ...

References

{{authority control Towns in South Australia