Pooraka ( ) is a suburb in

Adelaide Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...

. It is north of the central business district.

History

The

Kaurna people The Kaurna people (, ; also Coorna, Kaura, Gaurna and other variations) are a group of Aboriginal people whose traditional lands include the Adelaide Plains of South Australia. They were known as the Adelaide tribe by the early settlers. Kau ...

are the people of the Adelaide plains, and inhabited the area for millennia before the colonisation of South Australia. Pooraka was created as a subdivision of section 97 of the Hundred of Yatala, the latter spanning from

Grand Junction Road Grand Junction Road is the longest east–west thoroughfare in the Adelaide metropolitan area, traversing through Adelaide's northern suburbs approximately 8 kilometres north of the Adelaide city centre. Route Travelling from the Port Adelaide ...

, at Gepps Cross, to a point north of Montague Road. It was originally known as Dry Creek after the local watercourse ( Dry Creek), which is now the name of a modern industrial locality west of Pooraka, at the creek's mouth ( Dry Creek, South Australia). In 1916, the District Council of Yatala renamed the suburb Pooraka, which was believed to be an Indigenous

Kaurna The Kaurna people (, ; also Coorna, Kaura, Gaurna and other variations) are a group of Aboriginal people whose traditional lands include the Adelaide Plains of South Australia. They were known as the Adelaide tribe by the early settlers. Kau ...

word meaning "dry". However, according to linguist Robert Amery, the name bears no resemblance to the Kaurna words for "dry" or "creek". The term has been identified as a New South Welsh Indigenous name for the turpentine tree, which is not found in South Australia. Pooraka East Post Office opened on 1 December 1965 and closed in 1986. A railway station on the

Northfield railway line The Northfield railway line (formerly Stockade railway line) was a railway line in northern Adelaide running Dry Creek, South Australia, Dry Creek and Northfield, South Australia, Northfield. The line branched east from the Gawler railway line ...

(initially known as Abattoirs, but later renamed Pooraka) operated from 1913 until it was closed on 29 May 1987.

References

Suburbs of Adelaide {{Adelaide-geo-stub