Humpty Doo - History

History

The Djerimanga (also known as Woolner) people are recognised as the traditional owners and first inhabitants of an area from the present day site of Humpty Doo east into the Adelaide River wetlands. Their way of life remained unchanged until first contact with European explorers in the 19th Century, likely during the 1864 expedition led by Boyle Finniss to explore the areas surrounding the Adelaide River.

In September 1869, Surveyor-General of South Australia George Goyder completed work to divide the hinterland surrounding the present day Litchfield Shire into 10sq mi parcels. These parcels were subsequently divided into smaller allotments and made available to settlers as pastoral leases and freehold titles.

Following the discovery of gold near Pine Creek during the 1880s, the subsequent influx of Chinese miners to the Northern Territory led to a high demand for food crops such as rice. Rice crops planted on the floodplains near Humpty Doo were used to meet this demand with some success. Experiments with other tropical crops including sugar cane, coffee and rubber were attempted, most of these planted in the vicinity of Beatrice Hill to the east of the present day town. Experiments were made with livestock too and it was hoped that the banks of the Adelaide River could be developed to include loading facilities for live cattle export. By 1887, plantations on the floodplains had been abandoned due to the land owners financial difficulties. Despite this, rubber trees and coffee bushes showed particular potential. A single harvest of 10 tons of coffee beans was exported to Melbourne during the short lived experiment.

In 1910, the name "Umpity Doo" first appeared to describe buildings and improvements on a survey plan of Agricultural Lease No. 28. This lease was held by Mr. Oscar Herbert. Herbert died in 1974 at nearby Koolpinyah.

In 1954, after some experimentation by CSIRO and based on previous successful rice crops, a joint Australia-U.S. company called Territory Rice Ltd. was formed with a plan to irrigate the subcoastal plain of the Adelaide River in order to commercially produce rice. The plan was a complete failure due to several factors, including an invasion of geese, soil that was too saline and an insufficient amount of drainage, all combined with poor management. They gave up the land to the government in 1962. The Rice Project was 20 km east of the present town on part of the Humpty Doo Station where the name "Humpty Doo" was first used. The irrigation dam, called Fogg Dam, is still there and an attraction for bird watching.

Local resident, Neville Skewes opened a small store on Mount Bundey Road (now the Arnhem Highway) in 1967. At this time, there was very little development, with most of the surrounding area being bushland. On 11 September 1971, after being granted a liquor licence, Skewes and his wife Helen opened the Humpty Doo Hotel-Motel. The opening of the Hotel coincided with further improvements to the road east to Kakadu and Arhnem Land, and encouraged further urbanisation of the area around Humpty Doo.

The Royal Australian Navy opened a transmitting station, known as the Humpty Doo Transmitting Station in 1982. This replaced a facility at Coonawarra East that was destroyed by Cyclone Tracy in December 1974. The station supports the naval base HMAS Coonawarra, located in Darwin.

On 21 July 2007, the town played host to the first of the 'Triple J goes AWOL' concerts, sponsored and organised by the national youth radio station Triple J.