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Pine Creek has a birthday this week, but it’s an odd one. It was first gazetted as a town on 24 January 130 years ago, but was officially given a different name to the one we know. Even though people already called it Pine Creek because of the remarkable pines growing along the creek nearby, it was first gazetted as 'Playford' after Thomas Playford Sr, the South Australian Commissioner of Crown Lands (the Playford Club Hotel is pictured, which still stands). This attempt to honour him didn’t work. Locals kept calling it Pine Creek anyway, and in 1973 the town’s name was finally changed to officially reflect the name people had been using for more than 80 years.



Published: 20 January 2019

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Forgotten Territory was a weekly photo column of historic images in the Northern Territory News which I curated from 2016 until 2019 supported by the collections of the Northern Territory Library and other cultural institutions around Australia, as well as local history Facebook groups. 

Click on the images to read the story behind the image.

Warning: May contain images of people who have died.

These works were made on Arrernte, Larrakia, Kaytetyem Gaddigal and Lenape land that was never ceded

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