HALLS CREEK WA

  We are on our way to our next free camp at Mary Pool 210 kms west of Leycesters Rest and have decided to call in to Halls Creek for a while to have a look around and to shower at the Roadhouse.
  Halls Creek didn't seem to have much to offer initially but after I dug a bit deeper it turned out to be a more interesting than first thought. On Christmas day 1885, Charlie Hall found a 28 ounce gold nugget at a site that was to be later named Halls Creek. The site became a prospecting ground for almost 15,000 who had traveled from all over the world to try their luck. The area eventually became the centre of trade for the Cattle industry, local Aboriginal communities and the miners. In 1948 an airstrip was built and the town gradually moved close to this, 15 kms to the west. The decision to re-locate the whole town from the original site at Old Halls Creek was made for several reasons. One reason was to locate the town on the Great Northern Highway for commercial reasons. Old Halls Creek was bi-passed by the highway and missed the passing trade. Also periodic flooding of the creek had been a problem at the old site and there was a lack of habitable land. Not everyone favoured the move. While the post office and the AIM Hospital wanted to be closer to the airstrip, the publican and storekeepers initially wanted to stay put.
 Halls Creek has only existed at its present site for about 50-60 years. Old Halls Creek was eventually abandoned in 1954 (the year that I was born) and it took almost a decade to complete the move. The gradual process of re-locating the town from the old to the new site took a decade to complete. Whole buildings were shifted and many new ones constructed utilizing both Aboriginal and European labour. The first building erected at the present town site was a house built for the Road Board Secretary in 1949 -1950. The Post Office opened in 1952 and the Australian Inland Mission in 1953.
  From what I could see the population is predominately Aboriginal and I gather about 80% is under 30 years of age with 60% of these under age 20!
  In the centre of town there is a park with a Tourist Centre and two statues, one of which I could find out plenty and the other very little.
The first statue was of a man pushing a wheelbarrow on which another was perched. I soon found out that this was Russian Jack pushing his mate. Here is the story of Russian Jack, the pride of Halls Creek from an old account by an historian (edited by me):

 " Ivan Fredericks ( born Archangelosk Russia 1864 and died in Fremantle in 1904 ),  better known as Russian Jack, was a Kimberley prospector and a good mate who wheeled his sick friend 300 miles through The Kimberley's harsh landscape to Halls Creek for medical help.
Following the lure of gold, he found his way northward to the Kimberley district with an Australian mate. No one knew Russian Jack by any other name. He and his mate worked around the Derby area, paying their way and keeping their and up. And whatever distance they might be from Derby or Broome township Jack trolled his wheelbarrow in for supplies, leaving his less hefty mate at the gold workings. One day, when Jack had returned with a barrow load of fresh supplies, he found his mate down with fever. Tender as he was huge, Jack nursed his mate with the devotion of a true friend. When, with no avail, he had tried on him all the patent medicines at the camp, he said in his big voice: I'll take you to Broome to see a doctor. His mate protested, but Jack did not argue. He made his wheelbarrow into a sort of ambulance, fixed a place to hold some rations and a gun, put his mate to rest on the improvised bed, and started to wheel him nearly 150 miles (240 kms). Over rough and smooth country, by dry creek beds and river crossing haunted by crocodiles, Jack trundled his sick mate, resting when his patient was fatigued, cheerily nursing and feeding him and brought him triumphantly to Broome and saved his life.
Another recorded incident concerns Russian Jack and a mate returning from an unsuccessful prospecting venture inland when their food supply ran dangerously low and they decided to shoot a Kangaroo to help feed them along the track. Jack's mate spotted a kangaroo and decided to chase it on foot. Unfortunately, he tripped and broke a leg. In typical fashion, Jack lifted his injured mate onto his wheelbarrow and pushed him to safety. When the pair eventually arrived in town, one of the locals mentioned that Jack must have traveled over a certain rough track, one noted for its potholes, stones and gullies. Jack told the admiring on-lookers I pushed him over 100 miles (160 kms) in that damn wheelbarrow. The man with the broken leg, from Russian Jacks wheelbarrow remarked dryly: Yes and I'll answer so far he hasn't missed a rock."
  The other statue is of an Aboriginal Man. The only information that I could glean was from an old

Aboriginal couple as they walked by. they told me that is was of a fellow who walked from Wolfe Crater, about 130 kms from Halls Creek I think, to Wyndham on the North Kimberly coast. That's it so if any readers know of the story I would be very pleased to hear it.
(Click on a Photo to Enlarge)