Crotty is the site of a former

gazetted A gazette is an official journal, a newspaper of record, or simply a newspaper. In English and French speaking countries, newspaper publishers have applied the name ''Gazette'' since the 17th century; today, numerous weekly and daily newspapers ...

town A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city. The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...

Western Tasmania The West Coast of Tasmania is one of the Regions of Tasmania, regions of Tasmania in Australia. It is mainly isolated rough country and is associated with wilderness, mining and tourism. It served as the location of an early convict settlement ...

, Australia. The town was on the southern bank of the King River, on the eastern lower slopes of Mount Jukes, below the

West Coast Range The West Coast Range is a mountain range located in the West Coast, Tasmania, West Coast region of Tasmania, Australia. The range lies to the west and north of the main parts of the Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park. The range has h ...

. The locality was formerly named ''King River''

Townsite

The town reserve was gazetted on 5 June 1900. The town survey was completed in November 1900. By 1902 there had been development of over 150 dwellings, and 700 people living in the town. The last residents to move away left in 1928. In photographs found in

Geoffrey Blainey Geoffrey Norman Blainey, (born 11 March 1930) is an Australian historian, academic, best selling author and commentator. Blainey is noted for his authoritative texts on the economic and social history of Australia, including ''The Tyranny of ...

The Peaks of Lyell ''The Peaks of Lyell'' is a book by Geoffrey Blainey, based on his University of Melbourne MA thesis that was originally published in 1954. It contains the history of the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company, and through association, Queens ...

, the foreground shows a bridge, the Baxter River bridge. This was a crucial connection for people travelling between the railway stopping places.

Smelters failure

At the turn of the twentieth century, the township had had a

smelter Smelting is a process of applying heat and a chemical reducing agent to an ore to extract a desired base metal product. It is a form of extractive metallurgy that is used to obtain many metals such as iron, copper, silver, tin, lead and zin ...

and railway connection with the North Mount Lyell mine. The North Mount Lyell smelters failed, despite attempts in 1901 and 1902 to correct issues. Initially, reverberatory furnaces were used, then water jacket furnaces were tried. The company was absorbed by the

Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company was a Tasmanian mining company formed on 29 March 1893, most commonly referred to as ''Mount Lyell''. Mount Lyell was the dominant copper mining company of the West Coast from 1893 to 1994, and was based in ...

in 1903. The townsite soon lost population after the failure of smelter operations. The

North Mount Lyell Railway The North Mount Lyell Railway was built to operate between the North Mount Lyell mine in West Coast Tasmania and Pillinger in the Kelly Basin of Macquarie Harbour. History At the start of the Twentieth century it was constructed to take o ...

which serviced Crotty's connections with Gormanston,

Linda Linda is an English feminine given name, derived from the Spanish word , meaning "pretty." Linda may also refer to: Names * Linda (given name), a female given name (including a list of people and fictional characters so named) * Linda (singer) ...

and Pillinger (Kelly Basin) remained in service for a couple of decades before closing. Most historical photos of Crotty show the smelters, the hotels, and the very small houses/huts. The most iconic photograph is that found in

's ''

'', dated 1902, which was taken from the embankment just east of the railway line, looking west, up the main street with the smoke from the smelter in the air, and Mount Jukes in the background.

Hydro dam era

During the late 1970s and at an early stage in the "No Dams" campaign to stop the establishment of a

dam A dam is a barrier that stops or restricts the flow of surface water or underground streams. Reservoirs created by dams not only suppress floods but also provide water for activities such as irrigation, human consumption, industrial use, aqua ...

on the

Franklin River The Franklin River is a major perennial river located in the Central Highlands (Tasmania), Central Highlands and Western Tasmania, western regions of Tasmania, Australia. The river is located in the Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park at ...

, a small group of musicians in Queenstown formed a group called the 'Crotty Ditty Band'. During the building of the King power development in the 1980s, the Hydro ''Crotty Camp'' was home to several hundred dam construction workers In the 1990s the townsite was inundated by

Lake Burbury Lake Burbury is a man-made water reservoir created by the Crotty Dam inundating the upper King River valley that lies east of the West Coast Range. Discharge from the reservoir feeds the John Butters Hydroelectric Power Station, owned and ...

after

Crotty Dam The Crotty Dam, also known during construction as the King Dam, or the King River Dam on initial approval, is a rockfill embankment dam with a controlled and uncontrolled spillway across the King River, between Mount Jukes and Mount Huxley ...

was installed as a part of the King River Power development scheme. Despite this, the Tasmanian 1: Owen map still identifies the ''Proclaimed Town of Crotty''. During 2016, Lake Burbury receded to a historically low level and remains of the town became visible. On the eastern shores of Lake Burbury, the land south of the

Lyell Highway The Lyell Highway (Route A10) is a highway in Tasmania, running from Hobart to Queenstown. It is the one of two transport routes that passes through the West Coast Range, the other being the B28 Anthony Road. Name The name is derived fro ...

, and adjacent to the

Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers is a national park in Tasmania, 117 km west of Hobart. It is named after the two main river systems lying within the bounds of the park - the Franklin River and the Gordon River. Location The Franklin-Gordon Wi ...

, is known as the ''Crotty Conservation Area''. This has an area of and was established on 27 December 2000.

References

External links

list of conservation areasmap with Crotty and Queenstown
{{authority control Ghost towns in Tasmania Mining towns in Tasmania Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company West Coast Range North Mount Lyell Railway King River power development scheme Localities of West Coast Council

Townsite

Smelters failure

Hydro dam era

See also

References

Further reading

External links