TEROWIE SA

  It is easy to miss Terowie with only a small sign on the Hwy to the historic little township 20 kms from Peterborough. The first property encountered on the outskirts with it's yard full of a collection of weird hand made stuff hinted that this visit may be worthwhile.

 A strange place is Terowie, although there were a couple of residents around with a couple of young blokes in front of a derelict old house saying "gooday", it is all but a ghost town. The few streets that make up the town precinct were full of dilapidated old houses and long abandoned shops, some from the 1800's.
    Terowie is an aboriginal word meaning "Hidden Waterhole" and was first applied to Terowie Creek and the Hundred of Terowie. The town was founded as a private venture around 1875 by John A. Mitchell (died ca. May 1879), who built a public house (highly profitable due to its proximity to the Inkermann mine on the main road and land was taken up by a blacksmith, a medical practitioner, a store and others. By 1880 there were two stores, two butchers', a bakery, a saddlery, a boot maker, three blacksmiths', the hotel and another under construction, two chapels, an Institute and the Railway Station. The railway line south was completed on 11 October 1880. In 1898 the town hosted a busy break of gauge (where a line of one gauge meets a line of a different gauge), its population was about 800–900 people, many of whom worked on the railways.The town was also home to a busy staging camp during World War II, due to the break-of-gauge for the busy railway traffic going to Alice Springs and thus much of northern Australia.

  Probably the most famous thing to happen in Terowie was on 20 March 1942, when U.S. General Douglas MacArthur visited whilst transferring trains and made his famous speech regarding the Battle of the Philippines in which he said: "I came out of Bataan and I shall return". He subsequently repeated the line "I shall return" in a number of other speeches, in a number of other places. The event is commemorated by a plaque on the now disused railway platform.

 Since visiting Terowie I stumbled across this report that appeared in "The Advertiser" on Oct 25th 2013, around about the time that I was there:

"An investigation into human bones found in a Terowie home has been declared a major crime as police continue to search for a "substantial amount" of the remains that are still missing. A 25-year-old man who is not cooperating with police has been arrested over the find and charged with failing to report the death to authorities.
Major Crime Branch officer-in-charge Detective Superintendent Des Bray says the man, who is known to police, was the subject to a firearms search when police discovered a plastic tub in the front room of the house containing human bones.
"We're satisfied that the victim was murdered and met a violent death," Det Sup Int Bray said."It wasn't a full skeleton and part of the body is missing. I'm not prepared to say what parts of the skeleton we've recovered and what is still outstanding."
The bones have been sent to Adelaide for examination but preliminary reports suggest that the bones were not Aboriginal nor early settler.
Police say it is too early to tell who may be responsible for the murder but once the age and sex of the victim were established it may be able to rule out the 25-year-old man charged over failing to report.
"We're hoping that the examination will identify the age, sex of the person which will put us in a better position to identify who the victim might be," Det Supt Bray said.
"It may have nothing to do with the homeowners or the person we've taken into custody - once we know the age of the bones we'll be in a much better position."
Missing persons reports are currently being looked through by police but no other sites around the small country town are being investigated.
Police will remain at the property throughout the day continuing to search for more bones as police say they have been dug up from somewhere, then stored in the property's shed before ending up in the front room of the Packer St home where they were discovered.
Residents in the street suspected the bones may be quite older.
"They could be from years ago - who knows?" one woman said.
"It's a pretty quiet place - I've lived here for years and not heard anything like this."
Christopher Scott was later refused bail and remanded in custody to appear again in court in November."

The house where the remains were found looks just like the one from where the young blokes said "hello" when I visited; creepy!