Hallett.
The high altitude, between 1,000 and 2,000 feet in the district means that it can claim with good reason to grow the best and finest Merino wool in Australia. (Hallett is one of the highest railway stations in South Australia at 600 metres and the town is almost 1,800 feet above sea level.) Most people have heard of Collinsville Stud, but there are many others in the district too. One of the oldest was Canowie Stud, founded by the early pastoralists, J and W Browne, the two medical brothers who started out in this district in 1839 and started the first pastoral runs in the early 1840s. Other important merino studs around Hallett are: Cappeedee 1843 with the Murrays at Williamstown; Collinsville 1895; The Bluff 1874; Mt Glen View 1902; Ashrose 1910; Reston Vale 1911; Greenfields 1947; Aroona 1963; and Marloo 1965. Over the years these early pastoral leases were sold and changed many times. Daniel Cudmore played an important role as a pastoralist in the 1850s too as he improved and extended Canowie and Yongala runs parts of which he had acquired from the Brownes. This stud was finally sold up and dispersed in 1925 for closer settlement by the government. Just outside the town is Willogoleche homestead which was established by the Hallett brothers. This homestead and run was eventually taken over by Joseph Gilbert (of Gilberton) and Pewsey Vale in the Barossa Valley. The township of Hallett was declared and surveyed in the early 1870s after the passing of the Strangways Act of 1869. The push for farmers to be able to grow crops in these pastoral areas grew unabated at this time. Hallett was a suitable area, within Goyder’s Line, with plentiful supplies of underground water as well as rainfall. The town prospered once the railway from Burra arrived in 1878.
The town of Hallett really got underway around 1872 when the first public buildings were erected – namely the first Post Office in 1872, an early police station, the state primary school 1879, a wooden Bible Christian Methodist Church 1877 followed by a stone one in 1880, the Willogoleche Hotel around 1873 and the first Institute in 1879. All these buildings remain except for the first police station but few are used for their original use except for the Willogoleche Hotel. An early general store was established by Crew and Co of Burra and the local blacksmith Statton set up major works in 1892. He produced the usual range of farm implements but also his famous Statton gates which were sold all around Australia. One still remains on the Hallett railway station driveway. Many were used by South Australian Railways. Statton blacksmiths and engineers operated in Hallett from 1892 to 1957. One later structure in Hallett is noteworthy and that is the second Institute which was opened in 1929 in Alfred, the Main Street. When it opened the first institute was purchased by the Anglicans in 1932 for a church and the two front windows were changed into Gothic windows to make it look like a church. This was sold to the RSL Club in 1953 once the Anglicans were planning a new modern church on the outskirts of Hallett. That Anglican Church opened in 1956 but is now a residence as is the original Institute/Anglican church. The Masonic Lodge at the northern end of the Main Street opened in 1928 with typical lodge architecture with few and very high windows etc but as membership dropped it closed in 1978. In 2008 the Lodge offered it free of charge to the Catholic Church which re-opened it as the Good Shepherd Church. Alas their congregation has dwindled and that Hallett Catholic Church closed in 2015 for lack of a priest and congregation.
