Tumby Bay, South Australia

Tumby Bay is a coastal town situated on the Spencer Gulf, on the eastern coast of Eyre Peninsula in South Australia, north of Port Lincoln. The town of Tumby Bay is the major population centre of the District Council of Tumby Bay, and the centre of an agricultural district farming cereal crops and sheep, as well as having established fishing and tourism industries.HistoryThe bay was first explored and given the name Tumby Bay by Matthew Flinders in 1802, after a parish in Lincolnshire, England. In 1840 Governor Gawler renamed the bay Harvey('s) Bay after one other district's early settlers. Then on 15 November 1900 the town of Tumby was proclaimed by Governor Tennyson, and the name of the bay itself reverted to Tumby Bay. On 14 June 1984 the town officially became known as Tumby Bay.The earliest settlers to the district arrived in the 1840s, and farmed the area with wheat and sheep predominantly. The town soon grew into an important grain storage and loading point, with a jetty constructed in 1874, only the second to be built on the Eyre Peninsula. This provided a much needed outlet for the copper ore which was coming from the Burrowing Mine. The original jetty was taken down in 1999 due to safety concerns, but the other newer jetty is still in use.