On the banks of the Katherine River and junction of the Stuart and Victoria River Highway 330 km's south of Darwin.

10,032

ABS August 2001

English

To Darwin: 3.5 hours

To Darwin: 1 hour

Katherine George

Most major facilities of medium sized town. Banks (Commonwealth, ANZ and Westpac), a range of retail food, clothing, household appliance, toy shops, newsagents, Woolworth's supermarket (open seven days).

The urban community is served by two general practices; the Kintore Clinic and the Wurli Wurlinjang Health Centre. Outside Katherine patients usually attend community health clinics where they are seen by resident Aboriginal Health workers and Nurses. This service is supported by a regional District Medical Officers working for Rural Services. The region is serviced by a 60 bed area hospital.
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Katherine is an ideal centre for rural general practice training. First there is a close and cooperative relationship between the Hospital, Clinic, Health Centre and District Medical services. These are all staffed by people with general practice training and offer wonderful training possibilities. The population of Katherine go to one of the practices or to the A&E department of the hospital for their primary medical care. Often the patients admitted by the hospital staff will be seen by the GP's when in hospital as the GP’s skills may be required

Historically Katherine has always been important. To the local Aborigines it was the point where the traditional lands of the Jawoyn, Warlpiri, Dagaman and Wardaman met and consequently the river and the nearby gorge were popular meeting places.

The Katherine River, after which the town and the nearby gorge take their names, was named by John McDouall Stuart when he passed through the area in 1862

As with so many of the settlements in the Territory the next step in the development of Katherine was the arrival of the Overland Telegraph Line and the establishment of the Katherine Telegraph Station on 22 August 1872.

The Overland Telegraph helped to the opening up the area to pastoral activities. In 1877 Alfred Giles and Alfred Woods, accompanied by 40 men, 2500 cattle, and 12 000 sheep headed north from South Australia with a view to establishing a pastoral empire in the Northern Territory. They arrived near the modern day site of Katherine in June 1879 (the journey had taken them 20 months) and near the Katherine River they built a homestead which they called 'Spring Vale'

In 1917 the railway was extended from Pine Creek to Katherine but it was halted by the difficulty of building a bridge over the river. It wasn't until 1924-26 that a bridge was built. With the completion of the railway bridge in 1926, the present site of Katherine, on the south-eastern side of the river, was gazetted on 15th July, 1926. The new area was presumed to be less flood prone