From 'Black Point' to Snowtown
Snowtown was known as Black Point from about 1840.
Black Point is the name of the prominent hill to the East of Snowtown.
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Pastoral lease 395 around Black Point Hill was granted to E B Gleeson in about 1847.
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Black Point Station was slowly developed.
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Pioneer "Paddy" Gleeson, of Clare, erected a homestead at Black Point, east from the hill, between 1851 and 1861, near a fresh water lagoon.
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Pioneer John Ellis leased the large Hummocks run to the west of Black Hill from 1845 and erected a stone homestead at Barunga Station between 1860-1863.
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These leases were "resumed" for closer settlement in 1869.
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From 1870 pioneer pastoralist Robert Barr Smith bought most of the Hummocks run.
Snowtown was surveyed in 1878, long after the surrounding acreage had been sold off by the Government. It was built around a (planned) railway line to Brinkworth (now removed).
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Snowtown building sites were auctioned in 1879, the first building then being the Snowtown Hotel (pictured below)
1870
​SA Chronicle and Weekly Mail (Adelaide, SA)
— The roads from here to Port Wakefidd
are in a wretched state. nothing but water
and bogholes, especially near Port Wakefield.—
There was no road or railway to Kadina from Snowtown in 1870:
1877
Snowtown's Development
Next three pages:
1879
Apart from Adelaide, the earliest towns (such as Clare), were private speculations, but in 1846 the government began surveying country towns.
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In the 1860s it became common to lay out at least one town in each hundred, leaving little scope for private towns.
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Light's plan of Adelaide had some effect on these early towns, private and government.
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Goyder drew a sketch plan of an imaginary hundred including a town centre, park lands and surrounding suburban land.
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This became the model for surveyors for the rest of the 19th century and little copies of Adelaide were strewn all over the agricultural areas.
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We already have information about Snowtown's schools, and pioneers which will be added to this page
