Lock is a town in the centre of

Eyre Peninsula The Eyre Peninsula is a triangular peninsula in South Australia. It is bounded by the Spencer Gulf on the east, the Great Australian Bight on the west, and the Gawler Ranges to the north. Originally called Eyre’s Peninsula, it was named af ...

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

. It is central Eyre Peninsula's main grain storage hub, as it is surrounded by a predominantly

farming Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled peopl ...

community, with emphasis on

cereal crop A cereal is any grass cultivated for the edible components of its grain (botanically, a type of fruit called a caryopsis), composed of the endosperm, germ, and bran. Cereal grain crops are grown in greater quantities and provide more food en ...

production. The town has a

hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a re ...

caravan park Caravan or caravans may refer to: Transport and travel *Caravan (travellers), a group of travellers journeying together **Caravanserai, a place where a caravan could stop *Camel train, a convoy using camels as pack animals *Convoy, a group of veh ...

motel A motel, also known as a motor hotel, motor inn or motor lodge, is a hotel designed for motorists, usually having each room entered directly from the parking area for motor vehicles rather than through a central lobby. Entering dictionarie ...

, supermarket,

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional ser ...

police station A police station (sometimes called a "station house" or just "house") is a building which serves to accommodate police officers and other members of staff. These buildings often contain offices and accommodation for personnel and vehicles, ...

, library, sporting complex,

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...

and

bowling Bowling is a target sport and recreational activity in which a player rolls a ball toward pins (in pin bowling) or another target (in target bowling). The term ''bowling'' usually refers to pin bowling (most commonly ten-pin bowling), thou ...

clubs and area school. At the

2006 census 6 (six) is the natural number following 5 and preceding 7. It is a composite number and the smallest perfect number. In mathematics Six is the smallest positive integer which is neither a square number nor a prime number; it is the second small ...

, Lock had a population of 290.

History

Although many nearby

coastal The coast, also known as the coastline or seashore, is defined as the area where land meets the ocean, or as a line that forms the boundary between the land and the coastline. The Earth has around of coastline. Coasts are important zones in ...

towns were settled much earlier, Lock was not established until the 1860s due to the low

rainfall Rain is water droplets that have condensed from atmospheric water vapor and then fall under gravity. Rain is a major component of the water cycle and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the Earth. It provides water f ...

and marginal conditions. Early settlers grazed

sheep Sheep or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are domesticated, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus '' Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to domesticated ...

on vast tracts of natural

vegetation Vegetation is an assemblage of plant species and the ground cover they provide. It is a general term, without specific reference to particular taxa, life forms, structure, spatial extent, or any other specific botanical or geographic characte ...

for very low costs. Land settlement occurred in 1861, with settlements continuing further north over the next decades. A major change occurred in the area with the arrival of the

Port Lincoln Port Lincoln is a town on the Lower Eyre Peninsula in the Australian state of South Australia. It is situated on the shore of Boston Bay, which opens eastward into Spencer Gulf. It is the largest city in the West Coast region, and is located a ...

railway line in 1913. The area was serviced by a siding known simply as ''Terre Siding'' after one of the local properties. This was altered when the town was gazetted in February 1918, and named Lock after Sergeant Albert Ernest Lock, a member of the South Australian Survey Department who had been killed in

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, in 1917. The potential for wheat cropping was realised with the establishment of the railway, but the low rainfall kept any developments from happening until the pipeline from the Tod Reservoir was connected. Two years later, a huge underground water reservoir was discovered under the town, capable of supplying all of the town's water needs. The Lock Heritage Museum displays a number of old wartime, farming and household items used in the area many years ago.

Geography

The town is located in the

geographic centre In geography, the centroid of the two-dimensional shape of a region of the Earth's surface (projected radially to sea level or onto a geoid surface) is known as its geographic centre or geographical centre or (less commonly) gravitational centre. I ...

of the

, surrounded by mostly flat

land, with patches of remnant

. It is at the intersection of the central highways, the

Tod Highway Tod Highway is an important 177 kilometre highway serving South Australia's Eyre Peninsula's wheatbelt, and is designated route B90. It is named after Robert Tod who explored the area in 1839. Route Tod Highway begins from Eyre Highway at Kyanc ...

from the base to the point of the peninsula and the

Birdseye Highway Birdseye Highway is an east–west road across Eyre Peninsula in South Australia. It was named for Sylvia Birdseye who drove the first bus service to the area from Adelaide for 43 years, starting in 1928, and is the first highway in South Austra ...

across the middle. It is also located close to the Hambidge Wilderness Protection Area to the north and the Hincks Conservation Park and the Hincks Wilderness Protection Area to the south, where the area's original

ecosystem An ecosystem (or ecological system) consists of all the organisms and the physical environment with which they interact. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the syste ...

s are somewhat preserved.

Community

In the 2006 Australian Bureau of Statistics

Census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses in ...

of Population and Housing, the population of the Lock town census area was 290. Some 95.2% of the population was born in Australia, with immigrants coming from

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

United States of America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...

and

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

Economy

Agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people t ...

, predominantly

ping and to a lesser extent,

grazing, is still the area's main economic input, with a minor input from

tourism Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. The World Tourism Organization defines tourism mor ...

during school holidays.

Mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic ...

potential in the area is showing promise, with iron ore having been discovered in

banded iron formation Banded iron formations (also known as banded ironstone formations or BIFs) are distinctive units of sedimentary rock consisting of alternating layers of iron oxides and iron-poor chert. They can be up to several hundred meters in thickness ...

s only 20 km to the southeast at

Wilgerup Murdinga is a locality in South Australia located on the Eyre Peninsula about west of the state capital of Adelaide. The name reportedly stems from an Aboriginal word for "cold". It includes a railway siding with bulk grain facilities on the Ey ...

Centrex Metals Centrex Metals Limited is an Australian resources exploration and mining company. History Founded in 2001, Centrex Metals was listed on the Australian Securities Exchange in 2006 with the aim of developing several iron ore projects on the Eyre ...

. Iron Road is also proposing to mine

magnetite Magnetite is a mineral and one of the main iron ores, with the chemical formula Fe2+Fe3+2O4. It is one of the oxides of iron, and is ferrimagnetic; it is attracted to a magnet and can be magnetized to become a permanent magnet itself. With th ...

north of Lock.

References

External links

Tourism Eyre Peninsula – Lock
{{authority control Towns in South Australia Eyre Peninsula Populated places established in 1918