No. 8 - Smithton

Duck River Post Office opened on 1 November 1873 and was renamed Smithton in 1895. In 1905 Smithton was declared a town and the Mowbray swamp (now part of the locality of Mella) was drained for dairy pasture. It was here that, in 1920, the 45,000-year-old skeleton of a Zygomaturus (marsupial hippopotamus) was discovered.

In 1905, the jetty at Smithton was 1200m long.

The first regular rail service on the Marrawah Tramway started in 1913. In 1919 The Stanley–Trowutta railway commenced services and by 1921 the Smithton to Irishtown link was opened. By 1922 the railway link from Myalla to Wiltshire Junction was completed, thus joining the railways in the municipality to the state system. Smithton High School was opened in 1937 and in 1951 a Kindergarten and Public Hospital were opened in Smithton, and the town began to flourish.

Smithton was first settled in 1856, but growth was slow. Forestry brought life to the region, with a thriving trade to Victoria in blackwood timber from the 1880s. The Duck River valley became the timber capital of Tasmania – and still is. Most country sawmills eventually closed, but Gunns is the biggest eucalypt sawmill in Australia and Britton Bros the biggest producer of minor species, mainly blackwood.

Cleared areas were converted to farmland, with dairying, beef cattle and cropping. The Duck River Butter and Bacon Factory (1904) became the biggest in Tasmania, and Henry Jones IXL (1953, now McCain Foods) is a major vegetable processor. Tasmanian Seafoods is Australia's biggest producer of abalone. By the early 1920s Smithton had outgrown nearby Stanley, and the seat of local government moved there in 1923.


Source: Smithton, Tasmania - Wikipedia
Source: Smithton

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