SAPort & river
Semaphore
Named for a flagpole that told Port Adelaide a ship was coming.
1851Signal flagpole raised on the beach
WHAT STARTED IT
The beach looks out over Gulf St Vincent, so approaching ships could be sighted here and signalled across the peninsula to Port Adelaide. George Coppin’s 1851 hotel, built to carry a signal flagstaff, gave the place its name, and a government signal station was working by 1857.
WHAT SUSTAINED IT
A bridge over the Port River in 1859, a jetty in 1860 and a railway in 1878 made it a seaside suburb for Port Adelaide and a resort for Adelaide. The time ball tower gave ships the time from 1875, but buses replaced the trams in 1935 and the signal station moved to Outer Harbor in 1937.
TURNING POINTS
1851George Coppin’s Semaphore Hotel is licensed, with a flagstaff to signal arriving ships.
1856A telegraph line is extended to Semaphore from Port Adelaide.
1860The jetty is completed.
1875The time ball tower begins dropping a daily time signal.
1884The Corporate Town of Semaphore is formed.
WHAT IT DOES NOW
A residential beachside suburb with a busy main street, jetty, cinema and foreshore. The time ball tower still stands on the Esplanade.
KEEP READING · SOURCESPort Adelaide Historical Society · SemaphoreTrove · The Register, 1 November 1924, ‘The Original Semaphore Hotel’Trove · The Register, 10 January 1903, ‘The Semaphore Signalman’Trove · Evening Journal, 17 January 1878, ‘The Semaphore Railway’Trove · Express and Telegraph, 3 October 1884, ‘Government Gazette’Trove · The Advertiser, 8 December 1937, ‘Demolition of Semaphore Signal Station’