Tintinara

Tintinara is a town located in the Murray and Mallee region of the South East of South Australia.

Tintinara is a town located in the Murray and Mallee region of the South East of South Australia.

The town is situated on the Dukes Highway and the Adelaide-Melbourne railway line. It is in The Coorong District Council local government area, the South Australian House of Assembly Electoral district of MacKillop and the Australian House of Representatives Division of Barker. At the 2016 Australian census, the town and district had a population of 527.The origin of the name has been debated. One possibility is that a local Aboriginal man was named Tin-Tin, and the 'ara' was appended to form the place name, or that one of the Boothbys' Aboriginal employees was named Tintinara. It has also been suggested that the name may have been a corruption of an Aboriginal word, tinlinyara, which is the word for the stars in Orion's belt.

The area was first settled by Europeans in the 1840s when graziers moved their flocks of sheep into the district. Shortly afterwards the 'Tintinara' homestead was erected by the brothers T. W. Boothby and J. H. Boothby, who held a lease of 165 sq.miles here. In 1865 the new owners, William Harding and George Bunn, built a 16-stand shearing shed which is now classified by the National Trust, along with the homestead.The Tintinara wells and Reedy Wells were regular watering points for Tolmer's gold escort team. Tintinara post office was opened in the 1860s.Tintinara is situated in what was an unproductive region because of its poor sandy soils, and low mallee scrub and heath vegetation. After clearing of some of this vegetation, and the addition of trace elements, the district has become a productive farming area. One of the main environmental areas that Tintinara has is Lake Indawarra.