History of The Australian Capital Territory - 20th Century Development Outside of Canberra

20th Century Development Outside of Canberra

A significant priority for the establishment of Canberra was the construction of water storage facilities. Cotter Dam was the first dam built on the Cotter River; construction on this 18.5 m (60.7 ft) concrete gravity dam started in 1912 and finished in 1915. Its height was raised to 31 m (101.7 ft) in 1951. Chlorination of Canberra's water began at Cotter Dam in 1955; operations were moved to the Mount Stromlo Water Treatment Plant in June 1967.

Two additional dams were built on the Cotter: the Bendora Dam, a double-curvature, concrete-arch structure, was completed in 1961; and the Corin Dam, an earth and rock-fill embankment dam, was built in 1968. In 1979 Googong Dam was built on the Queanbeyan River in New South Wales.

Transport into and out of the ACT was an early development priority. In 1931 the Federal Highway linking the ACT to Goulburn was completed, and in 1936 an airfield was constructed at Duntroon. On 13 August 1940 Australia's chief military officer and three senior ministers in the Menzies Government, James Fairbairn, Geoffrey Street and Henry Somer Gullett, were killed when their plane crashed on the southern approach to Canberra.

A 6.5 km (4.0 mi) branch from the Bombala railway line was built from Queanbeyan to Canberra station in 1914 and extended to Civic in June 1921, but the bridge over the Molonglo River was washed away in 1922 and never rebuilt. Plans to build a railway to Yass were abandoned. A 1067 mm gauge construction railway was built in 1923 between the Yarralumla brickworks and the provisional Parliament House. It was later extended to Civic, but the whole line was closed in May 1927. A railway connecting Canberra to Jervis Bay was planned, but never constructed. Several facilities were built in Jervis Bay including the Royal Australian Naval College (HMAS Creswell) erected in 1913, the Jervis Bay Air Base Range, and a Botanic Gardens.

The native forest of the ACT was composed almost wholly of eucalypt species and provided a resource for fuel and domestic purposes, especially during the economic boom following World War II. By the early 1960s, logging had depleted the eucalypt, and concern about water quality in the Cotter River catchment led to the forests being closed. Interest in forestry had begun in 1915, when T. C. G. Weston had commenced trials of a number of species including Pinus radiata on the slopes of Mount Stromlo. Plantation forestry began in earnest in 1926 with 2 km2 (0.8 sq mi) planted annually around Uriarra and Pierce's Creek.

By 1938 the area planted yearly was 4 km2 (1.5 sq mi), with the favourable benefit of reducing erosion in the Cotter catchment. In 1967 the Australian Government approved a plan for a total 160 km2 (61.8 sq mi) of plantation in the ACT, which was achieved in 1970. The ease of access to the plantations has made them popular recreation areas for Canberrans. Throughout the 20th century, significant areas of plantation forest were periodically lost to bushfires, with major fires occurring in 1939, 1952, 1979, 1983, 2001 and 2003.

In 1936 about 8.1 km2 (3.1 sq mi) of forest was set aside to create the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve, and in 1939 a koala enclose was built by the Institute of Anatomy. The government acquired land to establish a national park and fauna reserve in 1962, expanding it to 36.3 km2 (14.0 sq mi) and later, to its current size of 54.5 km2 (21.0 sq mi). In 1969 the first wildlife displays were created, and the park was officially gazetted in 1971. In 1984 the Namadgi National Park was declared. It is 1,061 km2 (409.7 sq mi) and takes up approximately 46% of the ACT's land.

In 1911, Mount Stromlo was assessed as a possible site for a Commonwealth Solar Observatory, and it became the location of the facility in 1924. It was operated as a Commonwealth government facility until 1957, when it was transferred to the Australian National University (ANU). From 1944 to 1968 it was also the site of the national time-keeping service. By the early 1980s, Mount Stromlo, together with the ANU's Siding Spring observatory, was producing Australia's greatest astronomical research output.

The Australian Government signed an agreement with the United States in 1960 for the establishment of satellite-tracking stations in the ACT. As a result of the agreement, three tracking stations were built in the ACT by NASA. The Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex was officially opened on 19 March 1965 by Prime Minister Menzies, and is the only station still in operation in the ACT, communicating with interplanetary spacecraft.

The Orroral Valley Tracking Station, which was for orbiting satellite support, opened in May 1965 in what is now part of Namadgi National Park, was closed down in 1985. Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station, completed in December 1966, was a communications relay station for Project Apollo, Skylab and interplanetary spacecraft from 1967 until 1981, when its 26 m (85.3 ft) antenna was moved to the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex. It was closed in July 2009 and is now being dismantled.