Price, South Australia


Price is a town and locality on Yorke Peninsula in South Australia. It is within the Yorke Peninsula Council local government area and is north west of the centre of state capital, Adelaide.

History and development

The township, which was proclaimed on 3 August 1882, is near the northern boundary of the Hundred of Cunningham.
It was named by Sir William Jervois, Governor of South Australia 1877–83, after his daughter in law, Florence Annie Price, who married John Jervois, his eldest son. She was a daughter of Henry Strong Price, a pioneer pastoralist of the Flinders Ranges.
Boundaries for the locality were created on 27 May 1999 for the "long established name."
The principal local industries are grain farming and salt production. In the case of the latter, approximately 170,000 tonnes of sea salt is harvested from of coastal salt evaporation ponds each year. Cheetham Salt owns the operations.
Tourism facilities are limited to the Wheatsheaf Hotel, established 1886, and a caravan park.

Wills Creek

Although not right on the coast, Price has a causeway running to a mangrove-fringed tidal creek, Wills Creek, which connects it with the sea. At the end of the causeway there is a public boat ramp. Once outside the creek, fishing is plentiful.
Wills Creek is a very sheltered anchorage for boats and, in earlier times, it was from here that bagged salt and grain was loaded onto ketches for export. These products are now transported in bulk form by road. A 1911 newspaper reported that most of the ketches visiting Price via Wills Creek had, on at least one visit, suffered the inconvenience of being stuck in the mud of the creek at low tide.

Climate

Price has a temperate semi-arid climate with insufficient winter rainfall to qualify as a hot-summer mediterranean climate. On average, the town experiences 59.0 clear days and 59.3 cloudy days per annum. Extreme temperatures ranged from on 14 January 2001 to on 13 June 1972. The wettest recorded day was 18 February 1946 with of rainfall.