Alectown is a town in the Central West region of

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

, Australia. The town is on the

Newell Highway Newell Highway is a National Highway (Australia), national highway in New South Wales (NSW), Australia. It provides the major road link between southeastern Queensland and Victoria (state), Victoria via central NSW and as such carries large amo ...

and in the

Parkes Shire Parkes Shire is a local government area in the Central West region of New South Wales, Australia. The Shire is located adjacent to the Broken Hill railway line and the Newell Highway. The area under administration includes the town of Parkes ...

local government area, , west north west of the state capital,

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

. The name is also applied to the surrounding rural locality, for postal and statistical purposes.

History

Originally known as Alecs Flat, the district was named after the three men who first prospected here - Alexander Cameron, Alexander Patton, and Alexander Whitelaw. It was originally a gold mining town which once had a population above 1,000. ''Bachelors Rush'' Post Office opened on 1 May 1888 and was renamed ''Alicktown'' in 1889 and ''Alectown'' in 1891. It closed in 1983. The police station closed in 1930. Alectown had a school, from March 1890 until December 1974. Today, only two

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a place/building for Christian religious activities and praying * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian comm ...

es and some residences remain in the town. Around 7km by road to the west of Alectown, on the Parkes-Narromine railway line. is the former site of Alectown West railway station, which closed in 1974. There is grain storage at the location, but it is no longer used as a train loading point.

Telescope

Alectown is the actual address of the

Parkes Radio Telescope Parkes Observatory is a radio astronomy observatory, located north of the town of Parkes, New South Wales, Australia. It hosts Murriyang, the 64 m CSIRO Parkes Radio Telescope also known as "The Dish", along with two smaller radio telescopes. T ...

operated by the

CSIRO The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is an Australian Government agency that is responsible for scientific research and its commercial and industrial applications. CSIRO works with leading organisations arou ...

, the largest

radio telescope A radio telescope is a specialized antenna (radio), antenna and radio receiver used to detect radio waves from astronomical radio sources in the sky. Radio telescopes are the main observing instrument used in radio astronomy, which studies the r ...

in Australia, which is used for both theoretical research and on

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

projects including the

Moon landings A Moon landing or lunar landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon, including both crewed and robotic missions. The first human-made object to touch the Moon was Luna 2 in 1959. In 1969 Apollo 11 was the first c ...

Demographics

At the , Alectown and the surrounding area had a population of 168. In the 2021 census the population had dropped to 151.

Notable residents

* Scott Westcott

References

External links