Kapunda - The Copper Town that Saved South Australia: In the Mid North Region of South Australia

Map Curnow, the giant statue of the Cornish miner, welcomes you into Kapunda and the main street instantly says, this was a very important early town in South Australia.

But it all started out here, near the miner’s statue, in 1842 when there were just vast sheep runs. Neighbors Captain Charles Bagot and Francis Dutton, compared notes and realised that around about here they'd both found some rather interesting green rocks, they asked the Governor if they could buy up a bit of this land, which they duly did - for a quid an acre.

They also sent the samples from this hillside to Wales to be assessed - the results were astounding!

Ross Voght, a Kapunda museum stalwart and 4th generation local of German farmer stock, continues the story,

“It was the richest copper ore ever found…and there are samples of it in the Museum”.

And Ross, who loves guiding tours around town, will also tell you that as a result of this extraordinary find, Kapunda became the first major commercial mine in Australia.

“And it was just as well because the state was just about broke at the time and fiddling round in Adelaide and not producing anything”.

So the Kapunda mine injected much needed money into the ailing coffers of South Australia.

Hundreds of Cornish miners dug shafts and tunnels with pick and shovels to find the rich copper ore underground. They eventually hit the water table and had to bring in a Bream pump from England to extract the water from the mine. The pump was steam driven and the chimney, you can still see today in Kapunda, was the draught chimney for the furnace that drove the pump.

In the town’s old newspaper office there’s a fascinating recreation dedicated to the mine and it includes a model of that first bream pump brought into Australia. The furnace that drove the giant pump swallowed 120 tonnes of firewood a day and, these days, the surrounding landscape is lingering evidence of what it took to keep that furnace burning.

The copper ore was loaded on 2 tonne drays to Pt. Adelaide where it was then sent off to the smelters in Wales, eventually the smelting was done here.

The champion lode first hit about 9 stories down giving rise to the first open cut mine in the country. When the quality and copper prices dropped, the main action here quit in 1879. But before the mine closed about a million pounds worth of copper had been taken out.

And this explains why the main street looks so solid and handsome to this day. Kapunda was the biggest commercial centre outside of Adelaide, with a mid 19th century population of 2000 people.

When the money and the beer were flowing free there were 11 pubs going at once. There are 3 survivors with one recently renamed to celebrate another source of fame for Kapunda….Sir Sidney Kidman.

The founder of the Kidman pastoral empire, Sir Sidney Kidman, first lobbed in to town as a runaway kid with 5 bob to his name and he stayed at the Prince of Wales Hotel.

According to Ross, “ He passed through the town very disgruntled on a one eyed horse he called Cyclops and he vowed and declared he'd come back to Kapunda a rich man”.

He surely did, running a growing string of huge outback properties from his offices in the main street. He was given the title, “The Cattle King”, as he became the largest landowner in Australia’s history. It was said that if you put all of his properties together they would’ve been bigger than England!

And the sign on the Sir Sidney Kidman Hotel records the record breaking horse auctions that were conducted out the back a century ago. Kidman sold 3000 horses in one record selling day.

The Kidmans left a legacy for future generations here too - Sidney married a local schoolteacher and in the 1920’s they gifted their grand home, Eringa to become Kapunda Highschool.

Explore this thriving town and you’ll find it’s stories run as rich and deep as the mine that started it all. There’s a wealth of atmosphere - and it comes at the right price!

The main street just has 19th century prosperity written all over it. For example the visitor information centre has the initials AT at the top of the building. Andrew Thompson built his handsome general store way back in 1860; he eventually took over the town newspaper and was very prominent in the district. Then the building became the council offices for a long time but now the visitor information centre has moved in, along with the library, so it’s exactly the spot to come if you want to know where to go and where to stay in a town that’s only minutes away from Clare Valley one way or The Barossa Valley in the other- mind you, this place deserves a day or two in it’s own right - the historic, Kapunda.

Kapunda is a comfortable hour’s drive from Adelaide - take the well-signed turnoff from the Main North Road just after the Gawler bypass.

As you’ve seen, you won’t miss the excellent Visitor Information Centre, they’ll fill you in about the museums, tours and where to stay.

Kapunda Visitors Information Centre Main Street Kapunda, 5373 Ph: 85662902 Email: kapunda.touristinfo@bigpond.com.au