Crotty, Tasmania

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Crotty ( 42°11′S, 145°37′E) was a gazetted townsite in Tasmania, which had a smelter and railway connection with the North Mount Lyell mine in the very early twentieth century. The North Mount Lyell smelters failed, and the company was absorbed by the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company. The townsite soon lost population, and the North Mount Lyell Railway which serviced Crotty's connections with Gormanston (and Linda) and Pillinger (Kelly Basin) remained in service for a couple of decades before closing.

Most historical photos of Crotty show the smelters, the hotels, and the very small houses/huts. The most iconic photograph is that found in Geoffrey Blainey's "The Peaks of Lyell" dated 1902, which was taken from the embankment just east of the railway line, looking west, up the main street with the smoke from the smelter in the air, and Mount Jukes in the background.

During the late 1970s and at an early stage in the No Dams or the Franklin Dam campaign, a small group of musicians in Queenstown formed a group called the 'Crotty Ditty Band'.

In the 1990s the townsite was inundated by Lake Burbury which was the result of the completed King River Power development scheme by the Hydro. Despite this, the Tasmanian 1:25 000 Owen map still has identification of the Proclaimed Town of Crotty identified.

On the eastern shores of Lake Burbury, the land south of the Lyell Highway, and adjacent to the Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park, is known as the Crotty Conservation Area.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] See also

[edit] References

Atkinson, H.K. (1991). Railway Tickets of Tasmania. ISBN 0-9598718-7-X.
Blainey, Geoffrey (2000). The Peaks of Lyell, 6th ed., Hobart: St. David's Park Publishing. ISBN 0-7246-2265-9.
Rae, Lou. The Abt Railway and Railways of the Lyell region. Sandy Bay: Lou Rae. ISBN 0-9592098-7-5.
Whitham, Charles. Western Tasmania - A land of riches and beauty, Reprint 2003, Queenstown: Municipality of Queenstown.