Mount Meharry
Mount Meharry is the highest mountain in Western Australia. It is located in the Hamersley Range within the southeastern part of Karijini National Park in the Pilbara region, approximately south-southeast of Wittenoom, and east-southeast of Tom Price.
The Pandjima peoples are the traditional owners of the area.
History
Mount Meharry is named after William Thomas Meharry, Chief Geodetic Surveyor for Western Australia from 1959 to 1967. Surveyor Trevor Markey and his party were the first people of European descent to discover the mountain, in 1967. Tom Meharry directed the survey party and performed the calculations that confirmed the mountain was the highest peak in Western Australia, being higher than Mount Bruce which lies northwest of Mount Meharry. Bluff Knoll, highest peak in the Stirling Range and sometimes mistaken as the state's highest, is lower than Mount Meharry.After Meharry's sudden death on 16 May 1967 the Nomenclature Advisory Committee recommended to the Minister for Lands that the recently discovered peak be named after him. The Minister for Lands Stewart Bovell approved this on 28 July 1967 and a notice naming the peak was published in the Western Australian Government Gazette on 15 September 1967.
In 1999, Gina Rinehart, daughter of Lang Hancock, applied to the Geographic Names Committee to rename the mountain after her father. The application was declined and in 2002 she lobbied the then-Premier Geoff Gallop with the same proposal. He, too, declined the request.