History Deepwater

DEEPWATER RAILWAY STATION
CONSERVATION MANAGEMENT PLAN

SECTION 2• DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE • PAGE 12

referred to Deepwater's relatively small-scale operations when compared to Vegetable Creek (Emmaville) to the west, which was the major tin field in New South Wales.50 Nonetheless, Deepwater was from 1886 the nearest railhead for the Emmaville mines, and ore freight contributed to the bulk of the station's income
for many years.

In 1866 the Deepwater settlement was described as `a pastoral hamlet and roadside hotel'.51 A local agent for the Armidale Express had been appointed in 1861, and the Deepwater Hotel appears to have been established the following year.52 The first land sales of `Country Lots' in the Deepwater Reserve (which had been resumed from the pastoral run) also occurred in late 1861, just months after major Crown Land Legislation was passed in New South Wales.53 The blocks were `on and near the Deepwater River and the road from Tenterfield to Glen Innes, about 30 miles from Tenterfield'.54 By the mid 1870s two hotels (the Commercial and the Deepwater) were trading alongside a couple of stores, a blacksmith and a carrier.55 The Commercial Hotel, established in about 1870, also housed the village post office, an arrangement tolerated by postal authorities for some years. 56 The construction of the Northern line, which was built along the eastern fringe of the village in 1884, also created a demand for a public school, which opened in October of that year. 57

Planned Village Development at Deepwater
The advent of the Northern line in the 1880s led the state to take an active role in planning Deepwater's future development. In May 1882 four sections of Crown land totaling about 19 acres were formally reserved from sale for railway purposes.58 The passenger station, goods shed, stockyards and railway cottages were later built on these blocks. In 1884 a major overhaul of Crown land legislation was passed by Parliament. The new laws retained the state's authority to designate official sites for village, town and suburban planning and development, and Deepwater was amongst the many localities formally proclaimed and gazetted the following year. An area of about 148 acres directly west of the railway station site was set aside for village settlement, and an additional 264 acres nearby was designated for `suburban' occupation.59
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Sources
50/ For accounts of the mining industry at Emmaville see Town and Country Journal, I September 1883, p. 406; J.E. Came, The Tin-Mining Industry in New South Wales, (Sydney, 1911); LR Lobsey, The Creek: A History of Emmaville and District (Emmaville, 1972).
51A. Barratt, Compiler, Deepwater Public School, 1884-1984 (Deepwater, 1984), p. 16.
52 AE, 1 June 1861, p. 4; `Annual Return of Publicans' Licenses', NSWGG, No. 192, 8 September 1865, p. 2039. Deepwater Dispatch, 3 October 1923, n.p. (facsimile reprint of articles taken from various issues, Dixson Library, University of New England).
53 For the Crown Lands Occupation and Alienation Acts see NSWGG (Supplement), No. 232, 18 October 1861.
54 NSWGG (Second Supplement), No. 259, 23 November 1861, pp. 2510-11.
55 Barratt, Deepwater Public School, p. 16.
56 The first extant official reference to the Commercial Hotel occurs in the `Annual Return of Publicans' Licenses', NSWGG, No. 216, 9 September 1870, p. 1935. However, note that an advertisement for the premises published in 1888 claimed that the hotel had been 'established over thirty years'. See Tenterfield Star, 1 December 1888, p. 1.
57 Barratt, Deepwater Public School, p. 1.
58 NSWGG, No. 206,22 May 1882, p. 2841.
59 NSWGG, No. 122, 20 March 1885, p. 1920.