Yeelanna, South Australia

Yeelanna South Australia
Yeelanna
Coordinates	34°08′24″S 135°43′44″E / 34.14000°S 135.72889°E / -34.14000; 135.72889Coordinates: 34°08′24″S 135°43′44″E / 34.14000°S 135.72889°E / -34.14000; 135.72889
Population	230 (2011 census)
Established	1908
Postcode(s)	5632
Location	398 km (247 mi) W of Adelaide 77 km (48 mi) N of Port Lincoln
LGA(s)	District Council of Lower Eyre Peninsula
State electorate(s)	Flinders
Federal Division(s)	Grey

Yeelanna is a town on the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia.^[1] The town is in the District Council of Lower Eyre Peninsula local government area, 398 kilometres (247 mi) west of the state capital Adelaide, via the Sea SA ferry across Spencer Gulf.

The Yeelanna district is based on the Lower Eyre Peninsula, and has a rich history, with the first settlers coming to the district in 1900.

The township was established in 1908, and had a policemen in the early days where he lived in a tent and there was two brick cells there for the wrong doers. A large dam was dug in 1909, and supplied the township in the early days, and later was connected to the Yeelanna oval to water it for the football and cricket until around 2003/2004 when the oval was last used for the Karkoo/Yeelanna cricket club. A butcher shop was their in the early days, a blacksmith shop, a 19-room hotel, from 1912 until the late 1920s,and it then was demolished, and the stone was transported to Kimba to build the current Kimba Hotel. Also there were a bank, a bakery until the 1950s, a boarding house, and a primary school that opened in 1908 and closed in 1972, and is now Bellwood Museum, there was a railway station, four railway cottages that were demolished in the mid to late 70's, a couple mechanical business's, and one has been started up again recently. The town still had two shops in the early 1980s, with one being also a post office, with the last shop closing being the Yeelanna General Store in 1986. There was petrol bowsers, a fuel agency, and there is still a local mechanical business called AUTOAFFECT, owned by Shaun and Mia Cain.

The town still has a hall with public toilets, a post office, grain silos, and fourteen houses. The oval part of the recreational park has been sold due to being no longer being used, but the land of the recreational park, where the old toilets,and old tennis/netball courts are, are still there for recreational use, there is still a Uniting Church, there is still a CFS, an Agriculturre Bureau that's existed since 1908, a museum called Bellwood Museum,and the town still has a table tennis club that was established in 1939, and last won back-to-back Premierships in 2006 and 2007,and has won 15 Premierships competing in the Great Flinders Table Tennis Association. And many great players from the club have won the Eyre Peninsula Singles Championships.

The town is still represented in a local football/Netball club called United Yeelanna, that in 2014 won the football Premierships in the A,B,and colts (under 16's) grades, and in the netball won the Premierships in the A-Reserves, and B-grade, and also is represented in a local cricket club called Karkoo/Yeelanna, Yeelanna had a tennis club until the late 80's, and many Yeelanna local people still play for the nearby Karkoo Tennis Club, that has 2 teams being Blue and White, and won the premierships in 2010/11 with 1 team, and in 2011/12,2013/14, and 2014/15 the Karkoo Blue team won premierships, with all these clubs being based at Karkoo, only 11 km's away from Yeelanna.

The Yeelanna district, is known for its extremely fertile farming land, where nearly all farms in the district are continuously cropped.

Yeelanna Uniting Church is part of the Western Eyre Uniting Churches Parish. The Church is located in Bell Street, opposite the museum and welcomes people from many different Christian backgrounds. The Minister from Cummins regularly leads services at 10:30 am on Sundays. A Sunday school and youth group operate from the church.

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