History
The plains in the Stirling Range region were the hunting grounds for small groups of Indigenous Australians for thousands of years before European settlement. At least two tribes frequented the area: the Qaaniyan people in the west, and the Koreng people in the east. The Stirling Range played an important role in their culture, appearing in a number of Dreamtime stories.
The first recorded sighting of the Stirling Ranges by a European explorer was by Matthew Flinders on 5 January 1802. While sailing along the southern coast of Australia, just east of King George Sound, he noted
- at the distance of eight leagues inland there was a chain of rugged mountains.
A settlement was established at King George Sound in 1826, and the following year the head of the settlement, Major Edmund Lockyer, explored the land north of the Sound. On February 1827, he observed in the distance
- mountains which run east and west about 40 miles.
Alexander Collie explored to the north of the Sound in 1831. On 29 April, he described the Stirling Range and recorded names for the main peaks. The following year, Robert Dale led an expedition to the Range. On 24 January 1832, he made the first recorded ascent of a peak in the Stirling Range, scaling Toolbrunup. Late in 1835, Governor James Stirling and John Septimus Roe led an expedition from Albany to Perth. They first saw the Stirling Ranges on 3 November, and on travelling closer to them the following day, Roe gave them their name.
Early exploitation of the Stirling Ranges included cutting of sandalwood and kangaroo hunting. The Ranges were never formally taken up for grazing, probably because of the many poison bushes in the area. However, squatters ran sheep to the south of the Range in the 1850s, and in the 1860s a selection was taken up at the base of Mount Trio.
The area that is now the Stirling Range National Park was temporarily reserved in April 1908, and formally gazetted as Western Australia's third national park in June 1913.
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