Deepwater History
DEEPWATER RAILWAY STATION
CONSERVATION MANAGEMENT PLAN

SECTION 2• DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE • PAGE 13

Provision was also made within the formal village boundaries (Alice street to the north, the Northern line to the east, Lachlan street to the south and Frazer street to the west) for a Courthouse/Police station, a new school building (erected 1889/60) and a Methodist Church. However the take up and development was slow prior to the arrival of the railway.

The influence of railway communication upon land values and usage is demonstrable. By 1891 the population of the village had risen to 362.61 A paper called The Deepwater Miner had commenced publication, a Progress Committee had been formed, a School of Arts had been built, a Court of Petty Sessions had been proclaimed, and a Cricket Club had also been started in the village .62 Although the paper complained about the quality of railway services and the Progress Committee lamented the state of the village's roads, a public telephone service between Deepwater and the nearby mining community of Castlerag was also opened in January 1891.63
Just over a year earlier, soon after a rush to Castlerag, this area had been subdivided and sold by the Deepwater pastoral station management, who also provided land for a public school.64 However, by May 1894 the Castlerag mine had shut, nearly all the allotments had been abandoned and the school building had been relocated elsewhere.65 Unlike these transient communities, railways invariably encouraged permanent occupation. This fact is reflected in land values, which were much higher for town lots near the railway.

Private Versus State Enterprise: The Deepwater-Mount Galena Tramway Proposal

In 1892 a proposal was put to the New South Wales government by a mining syndicate for the construction of a 26-mile tramway between Deepwater, Tent Hill, Emmaville and Mount Galena, where the mining company had commenced silver production. In March 1892 a Parliamentary select committee recommended that the line be built, and passed enabling legislation to allow the project to proceed.

A local member for Glen Innes, Alexander Hutchinson, told the committee that the new line would not only facilitate mining, but would also encourage closer settlement in the scattered mining districts to the west of Deepwater.bb Charles Lee, member for Tenterfield, also thought that the tramway would `give an impetus to settlement, to mining, and the general development of that part of the country'.67 However, Lee believed that the government would never undertake such a venture, and hence his support of the private proposal.68 Somewhat surprisingly, the Department of Railways had no objection to the line being connected with the
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Sources
60 Barratt, Deepwater Public School, p. 1.
61 Results of a Census of New South Wales, taken for the night of 5`6 April, 1891 (Sydney, 1894), p. 739.
62 DM, 30 August 1890, p. 2; 3 January 1891, p. 2; NSWGG, No. 682, 2 December 1890, p. 9217.
b7 DM, 13 September 1890, p. 2; 24 January 1891, p. 2.
64 Deepwater Pastoral Station Correspondence, 6 November 1889; 8 November 1889, V2200, fols. 24, University of New England and Regional Archives, Armidale. ss Ibid., 1 May 1894, fol. 181.
66 Ibid., para. 68.
b7 Ibid., para. 160.
68 Loc. cit.