Oodla Wirra South Australia | |||||||||||||||
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Coordinates | 32°52′59″S 139°03′47″E / 32.883°S 139.063°E [1] | ||||||||||||||
Population | 5 ( SAL 2021) [2] | ||||||||||||||
Established | 1889 | ||||||||||||||
Elevation | 505 m (1,657 ft) [3] | ||||||||||||||
Location | 259 km (161 mi) N of Adelaide | ||||||||||||||
LGA(s) | District Council of Peterborough | ||||||||||||||
Region | Yorke and Mid North [1] | ||||||||||||||
County | Herbert [1] | ||||||||||||||
State electorate(s) | Stuart | ||||||||||||||
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Oodla Wirra (formerly Penn) is a small town in the upper Mid North of South Australia. It is on the Barrier Highway approximately halfway from Adelaide to Broken Hill.
When the railway was built in 1880, a siding was provided, named Oodla Wirra. Soon after, a town was surveyed near the siding, but it was named Penn. This naming conflict continued until 1940, when the town was renamed Oodla Wirra, to match the railway station. [4] [5]
Oodla Wirra is a former railway town, as it was on the narrow-gauge railway between Port Pirie and Cockburn (where it connected to the Silverton Tramway to Broken Hill). When the Commonwealth Government replaced the narrow gauge line with a standard gauge line, the revised route passed south and east of the town.
A railway employee was killed in a shunting accident in the Oodla Wirra railyards in 1909. [6]
In 1889, ironstone flux was mined from a failed silver mine a few miles away, and carted to Oodla Wirra to be transported by rail to the smelters at Port Pirie. [7]