Memories from the 1920s
Many current properties in the Thallon district were part of Bullamon Station. One of them is Eumerella, won by Vaughan Baker’s grandfather in a ballot in 1923 and now owned by Vaughan and other members of his family.
In the early 1920s, the Australian Pastoral Company agreed to surrender the paddock known as Bluegate, not far from Thallon. It was divided into two blocks: Bluegate, now called Nullera, and Eumerella. In a ballot held at St George on 12 October 1923, Bluegate was won by Steve Mitchell, then a carrier at Thallon, and Eumerella by Frank Gibson, then a saddler at Hebel. The Gibson family, comprising Frank, his wife Amy, sons Lyle and Herb and daughters Grace, Maude and Isobel, took up residence on Eumerella in June 1924. Like most of the Thallon district at the time, much of it was infested with prickly pear cactus.
Frank Gibson had little prior experience with sheep and sought advice from Tom Brown, a former sheep and wool manager for the Australian Pastoral Company, who was then living at Bullamon.
Vaughan’s late aunt, Maude Casey, remembered sometimes being with her father when he stopped at Bullamon on his way home from Thallon. The Chinese gardener would bring flowers and vegetables and place them in Frank’s sulky.
She remembered the orchard, tended by the Chinese gardener, covering a large area south of the homestead, almost to the dip site, and including the Hill children’s grave (she recalled there being three graves). The garden in front of the house contained flowers and vegetables.
At that time, the homestead comprised the existing building, in which Maude remembered Mr Brown having his radio equipment, and a northern section that no longer exists. She remembered the kitchen, at the northern end of the north building with a big stove at one end, and the dimly-lit dining room next to it. She also remembered the building known as the Cubba Hut, near the dip site south of the building, which was connected with the product called Cubba, developed and marketed by Mr Brown for preventing and treating of blowfly strike of sheep.
Maude’s brother Herb Gibson was a frequent visitor at Bullamon. He got on well with Mrs Brown and helped to look after the property called Gunningundi (now Broadwater and part of Bullamon Plains) which was a pear-infested block leased by Mrs Brown and her daughter Mrs Gunn. Herb remembered the office and bookkeeper’s room at Bullamon being near the dip site and being demolished when the dip was constructed in 1932. Mr Brown’s sheep dipping service was quickly taken up: the Eumerella records show a payment of £10/6/6 to T. Brown for dipping in 1933.
The photo, taken at the Eumerella sheep yards in the late 1920s or early 1930s, includes Frank and Amy Gibson, Herb and Isobel (Vaughan’s mother). The man second from the left of the photo is Jim Drake, a World War 1 veteran and former AP Co employee, who lived at Bullamon and worked in the district.
The map shows Eumerella in the context of other land holdings at the time. The area west of Eumerella and Nullera remained part of Bullamon, owned by the AP Company and managed from Noondoo, until the Bullamon lease expired in 1946, after which it was divided into separate properties: several of these are still owned by the same families who won them by ballot in the early 1950s.