Salt Creek is a small settlement in

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...

, located along the Coorong, and is also the location of the

Coorong National Park Coorong National Park is a protected area located in South Australia about south-east of Adelaide, that predominantly covers a coastal lagoon ecosystem officially known as The Coorong and the Younghusband Peninsula on the Coorong's southern s ...

Information Centre.

History

The following brief history of Salt Creek was compiled by the South Australian historian

Geoffrey Manning Geoffrey Haydon Manning (1926–2018) was an Australian author and historian. He is known particularly for his books on South Australian placenames; ''Manning's Place Names of South Australia'' (1990) is particularly well-known and available onli ...

... There is another Salt Creek, 61 km South-East of Meningie and, 'early in 1866, Mr John Hodgkiss and others formed a small company with a capital of £500 to test the value of a supposed discovery of petroleum made near the notorious Malacha Martin’s house on the Salt Creek, by Mr W.H. Hamilton': Four men were sent out with 500 feet of boring rods and the oily substance which he had described as scum upon the surface of the water was traceable in various parts of the creek. Extensive claims were taken out and a company was formed to work a substance known as mineral caoutchouc and Mr Eustace R. Mitford was dispatched there.

Boundaries for the locality were created on 24 August 2000 for the " long established name" which is ultimately derived from a stream that flows through the locality on its way to the Coorong.

Oil rig monument

In 1892, a group of entrepreneurs, who believed there was oil located in the Coorong, drilled Australia's first oil well. They were unsuccessful, as it was later discovered that the 'oil' was in fact a flammable, compacted vegetable substance (known as ' coorongite'). A replica of the oil rig has been built as a monument to this enterprise.

People from Salt Creek

In 2017 the authorities discovered two young women who were kidnapped by a Salt Creek local by the name of Roman Heinze. Both girls were from overseas one was Brazilian and one was German. They were kept as sex slaves and they managed to escape and alert authorities.

References in literature

The novel ''Salt Creek'' by

Lucy Treloar Lucy Treloar is an Australian novelist. Education Treloar was born in Malaysia, grew up in England and Sweden, before moving to Melbourne, Victoria. She has a BA (Hons) in fine arts from the University of Melbourne and a diploma of professio ...

is set in the Coorong at Salt Creek in the 1850s and 1860s. It includes references to the ''Travellers' Rest'' Inn, to William and Catherine Robinson, the proprietors, and to

Malachi Martin Malachi Brendan Martin (23 July 1921 – 27 July 1999), also known under the pseudonym of Michael Serafian, was an Irish-born American Traditionalist Catholic priest, biblical archaeologist, exorcist, palaeographer, professor, and writer on ...

, and the real life murders committed by Martin.

Governance

Salt Creek is located within the federal division of

Barker Barker may refer to: Occupations * Barker (occupation), a person who attempts to attract patrons to entertainment events * Barker (coachbuilder), a builder of horse-drawn coaches and later of bodywork for prestige cars * a person who strips tanbar ...

, the state electoral district of MacKillop and the local government area of the

Coorong District Council Coorong District Council is a Local government in Australia, local government area in South Australia located between the River Murray and the Limestone Coast region. The district covers mostly rural areas with small townships, as well as part ...

References

{{authority control Towns in South Australia