Prior to European settlement, the dating of historical artefact found in coastal sand-dunes, indicate that Aboriginal tribes had settled the Yorke Peninsulas between 14,000-40,000 BC. The first European to sight the Wallaroo area was Captain Matthew Flinders during a survey expedition of the Australian coastline in 1802 when he discover and mapped the Spencer Gulf. Flinders named the peninsula after the Right Honourable Charles Phillip Yorke. The local Aborigines were the Narunga Tribe comprised of the Koornarrah, the WInderah, the Dilpah and the Wareeh, who called the area “Wadla-Waru”.
 

The district of northern Yorke Pensinsula was used as a winter pasture for the running of sheep. A station was built near Wallaroo Bay and a jetty purpose built for loading bales of wool. In the late 1850s the station was owned by a retired master mariner, Captain Walter Watson Hughes, who instructed his workers to inform him if they came across any “green stones”, an indication of the presence of copper. In 1859, a shepherd named James Boor, in the employ of Captain Hughes, discovered traces of green copper carbonate around a marsupial rat’s burrow, next to a shearing shed in the area now known as the Wallaroo Mines. Hughes lost no time in taking out a mining lease with the directors of Elder Stirling and Company.

By 1861 the town boasted the largest copper smelters outside Wales, processing copper ore from the Wallaroo Mines at Kadina and the Moonta Mines. For a detailed history of the town and region, check out the Wallaroo Heritage and Nautical Museum.

For additional accommodation, attraction, tours and other information visit the local tourism centre: