Woodman Point - History

History

Woodman Point was named after Thomas Woodman who accompanied Captain James Stirling on the 1827 HMS Success expedition which explored the upper reaches of the Swan River. When Stirling returned in 1829 with the first settlers for the Swan River Colony, Woodman Point would have been one of the first mainland landmarks sighted by the new arrivals.

In the 1880s a quarantine station was established there to isolate immigrants from the community whilst being cleared of smallpox, bubonic plague and Spanish influenza which was ravaging Europe, the Americas and Asia.

The facility continued to be used intermittently as a quarantine station until about 1979 when it closed. The buildings, including dormitories and administration buildings as well as the crematorium were placed in the Register of the National Estate in 1999. The dormitories and most other buildings are currently in use for school and other groups and now known as Woodman Point Recreation Camp.

Woodman Light, a lighthouse built in 1902, is located just beyond the eastern boundary of the reserve. The light is on small hill to the East side of Cockburn Road and nearby are stone cottages used to house the lighthouse keepers.

In 1966 the State Electricity Commission (now Western Power) built a wastewater treatment plant at Woodman Point. It was replaced by another plant in a new location also at Woodman Point in 1984.

The munitions bunkers, located in a munitions reserve East of the quarantine station, were actively used for that purpose until the 1980s when the facility was de-commissioned and moved to Karnup, southeast of Rockingham. By that time the Navy had also established its own facility at HMAS Stirling on Garden Island. A dedicated railway spur line to service the munitions reserve originally ran parallel to Cockburn Road past Coogee Beach to South Fremantle and then to the inner harbour of the Port of Fremantle which was a major allied naval base during World War II. Removal of the munitions reserve was necessary prior to developing nearby land into the residential suburb now known as Coogee.