Ghost Town Series – Arrilalah

The population of Longreach is about 3,000; the population of Arrilalah is zero.

Yet, but for the stroke of a bureaucrat’s pen more than 130 years ago, those figures would could be reversed today.

Arrilalah’s point of difference from the majority of ghost towns in Queensland is that it wasn’t built around a goldfield, nor was its population growth boomed by a rich find of any other useful metal or mineral.

Arrilalah and the neighbouring town of Longreach and ‘grew’ out of camps used by drovers and teamsters.

What is now the ghost town of Arrilalah was originally a camp for drovers and teamsters using the eastern bank of the Thomson River to rest their beasts on treks to the big Central Queensland pastoral runs which began to be taken up in the late.

The camp boasted a clean, sandy ridge near a long, deep waterhole within the vicinity of one of the few easy river crossings.

The area was first called Forest Grove. That was the name given to the 5,000 hectare pastoral run taken up in 1859 but whether the camp or the run was first called Forest Grove is not known.

The origin of the name, according to early newspaper reports, comes from its geographical position - ‘a clear grove amid the tree crowned ridges’.

The teamster’s camp which became Longreach was on the Mt Cornish outstation of the 52,000 hectare Bowen Downs pastoral run. It stands where teamsters rested their horse teams and drovers rested their flocks on the way to and from the Bowen Downs head station.

But while the camp on the Mt Cornish outstation remained nothing more than that, the camp at Forest Grove began to attract itinerant traders as early as the late 1870s.

When the Central Western rail line from Rockhampton reached what would become the town of Emerald in 1879, Forest Grove’s future seemed assured as it was rumoured that it would become the terminus.

These rumours became ‘certain fact’ by 1884 and the first hotel was opened by a Mr  Cowper. He named it the Commercial Hotel and it was soon after taken over by John and Catherine Coleman who built onto the original shack and also built a store.

A second hotel was underway when the government sent in surveyors and 139 commercial and residential allotments were surveyed.

About 125 allotments were auctioned in October 1885 and 75 were sold – many for prices which were reported to be a record for any western town.

The speed of change to the old drover’s camp after the land sale was remarkable.

Within a year or two, there were three hotels (the Commercial, the Club and the Royal), a large general store and a smaller store, two baker’s shops, a chemist, two saddler’s shops, two blacksmiths, two butcher shops, a bootmaker’s shop and a billiard saloon.

And a club had formed around the informal picnic races which were run as early as 1880. The races were now run once every two months and drew in large crowds. According to news reports of those race days … “the money spent in the town was plentiful”.

And the site was no longer known as Forest Grove.

Brisbane pioneer, Thomas Petrie, had lobbied the government and as such, its railway department, to consider using words from the language of the Aboriginal People to name localities and railway stations. Petrie was concerned that the tribal languages would be lost.

The Railway Department acceded to the request particularly for stations in localities that were as yet unnamed. However the Aboriginal language words used in the naming didn’t always belong to the language of the local tribe.

These stations were often named years ahead of any rail line construction and so it was that by the time the town at Forest Grove was surveyed, the Railway Department had already named the future station.

The name given was ‘Arrilalah’, which is understood to translate as ‘good feeding ground for galahs and cockatoos’.

And it would be the Railway Department which would seal the fate of its newly named town.

The Central Western line reached Barcaldine in 1886 and the following year the town of Longreach was surveyed by government surveyors.

But even before allotments were drawn on a map, the government had made the shock announcement that it had chosen Longreach over Arrilalah as the terminus for the rail line.

The Arrilalah townsfolk and surrounding pastoral run owners were outraged as outlined in a Letter to the Editor to the Rockhampton Morning Bulletin in December 1886 …

“[A] deep feeling of dissatisfaction exists throughout this district, in consequence of the information that the plans of the Central Railway Extension had been laid on the table of the House, and approved of, with Longreach as the terminus!

“This means neither more nor less than the complete extinction of Arrilalah.

“We cannot be expected to view with equanimity this gross violation of that unwritten law which should be equally binding on Governments as on individuals.

“Legally, perhaps, we have no redress, but morally we have a strong and undeniable claim to compensation, for having been led to invest our savings in the purchase of allotments in a township, the future prospects of which the Government, by taking the railway to Longreach, deliberately and intentionally ruin.”

The writer went on to explain the advantages of Arrilalah over Longreach, which included, it being:

• the site of the best crossing place for stock on the Thomson River.

• it already being a recognised centre of population, and

• its closer proximity to the vast area of south western Queensland, from where the traffic must come to make the line pay.

The writer also outlined his belief as to why the Government had chosen Longreach over Arrilalah. He accused the owner of Rodney Downs station (Aramac), who was also the State Member for the seat of Gregory, of making the false assertion that the Thomson River waterhole near Longreach was of a more permanent nature than the waterhole beside Arrilalah. 

“While we were slumbering in fancied security, he quietly sneaked the line to Longreach. The people of the district do not, however, intend to view calmly the destruction of all their hopes,” the writer continued.

But it seems the contentions of the people of Arrilalah went unheard as the rail terminus was opened at Longreach in 1892.

The decline in the fortunes of the town of Arrilalah was rapid from the point.

By the turn of the century all that remained was the Club Hotel and a few homes. The Club Hotel catered to travellers until 1949, when it too closed and the last of the townspeople moved away.

Today, the only structures which remain can be found in the town cemetery.        However, signage has been erected giving a brief history of the town, which once outpaced Longreach.