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Teetulpa, SA

Situated near Yunta in the Flinders Ranges region of South Australia, Teetulpa experienced a gold rush in October 1868, following the discovery of gold by Thomas Brady and Thomas Smith. By 1868, there were reportedly 5,000 miners on the goldfield. In a typical pattern of goldfields’ settlement, Teetulpa rapidly became a densely populated frontier goldfield town during the brief initial phase of the rush and returned to a more sedentary pattern of life by the early 1890s.

Although gold yields were small by national and international standards, Teetulpa is important in terms of South Australian history as, in the late 1880s, it was briefly the most profitable field in the colony. Although it was not a remote goldfield, diggers faced difficult conditions as a result of a lack of water and firewood, and in some instances had to resort to the dry blowing technique of gold mining (also used on the Western Australian goldfields).

Keir Reeves

References
'The Teetulpa Goldfield', in Flinders Ranges Research, http://www.southaustralianhistory.com.au/teetulpa.htm. Details