Clinton, South Australia

Clinton is a locality in the Australian state of South Australia located on the east coast of Yorke Peninsula overlooking the north west head of Gulf St Vincent about west of the state capital of Adelaide.HistoryThe Hundred of Clinton was proclaimed on 12 June 1862, comprising 137mi2. The port was surveyed that same year, with a jetty being erected in 1863. Surveys and closer settlement by farmers soon followed, along with land clearing of the mallee woodland.The first European occupiers were leaseholder pastoralists. In 1854 in what is now the northern parts of the Hundred of Clinton, W. & A. Rogers leased 75mi2 at an annual rental of ten shillings per square mile. In 1860, near the centre of the Hundred, T. & W. Day leased 12mi2.This was an important and busy port in the 1860s and 70s, being a transfer point for goods and passengers travelling between Port Adelaide and the copper mines at Wallaroo and Moonta. That was despite the shallowness of the beach, which closed the port to larger vessels during low tide.In 1878, the District Council of Clinton was established at the same time as the neighbouring councils of Kulpara and Port Wakefield. Clinton began a gradual decline after 1878 when the railway between Wallaroo and Adelaide was completed. The jetty was dismantled in 1916.