History
The Murchison River was named by the explorer George Grey, whose boats were wrecked at its mouth on 1 April 1839, during his second disastrous exploratory expedition; the name honours the Scottish geologist Sir Roderick Murchison. Murchison's advocacy had been essential in securing official support for Grey's Western Australian expeditions.
The estuary and river mouth was used as a holiday destination by families from the Galena mines in the 1920s and 1930s, and a military holiday camp was built there during World War II.
In 1951 the town of Kalbarri was gazetted at the river mouth, and by the end of the 1990s the population was about 2,000. In 1963 the Kalbarri National Park was gazetted, formally protecting the lower reaches of the river, including the gorge.
The Galena Bridge, carrying North West Coastal Highway over the river at Geraldine, was opened by the Main Roads Department in December 1983.
Read more about this topic: Murchison River (Western Australia)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“What has history to do with me? Mine is the first and only world! I want to report how I find the world. What others have told me about the world is a very small and incidental part of my experience. I have to judge the world, to measure things.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
“... that there is no other way,
That the history of creation proceeds according to
Stringent laws, and that things
Do get done in this way, but never the things
We set out to accomplish and wanted so desperately
To see come into being.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“If you look at the 150 years of modern China’s history since the Opium Wars, then you can’t avoid the conclusion that the last 15 years are the best 15 years in China’s modern history.”
—J. Stapleton Roy (b. 1935)