Officers : Tony Kelly 4th Nov 1951 to 26th March,1954
Camels in 1951 Jumper, Oodnadatta, Fred, Finke, Ferdinand and Flossie
District in 1951: 220,000sq miles. Line drawn from East to west, some seven miles south of Alice Springs, running from Qld Border to WA Border.
Finke River (Wikipedia) is one of the largest rivers in Central Australia and was named by John McDouall Stuart in 1860 and is known locally as Larapinta and is home to the Finke Gorge National Park.
The community is now called Aputula taken from the Arrente name for the local water source. It is located in the South East corner of the Territory and is home to the Pitjantjatjara, Yankunytjatjara, Luritja and Arrernte people.
Northern Territory police maintained a station in the township from its establishment until the railway siding was moved to Kulgera in the 1980's. Since then Aboriginal Community Police Officers ACPO's have worked locally supported by the station at Kulgera.
The historic Police cells are still in good condition but do not meet modern standards and are not presently in use. A small part of the old police residence is still used as a police office. Images are available on the Apatula Police page at Waru.Org.
Many references to Finke Police Station can be found in the 'Camels' Page
In 1949 Les Penhall completed a report for Native Affairs of a patrol of southern stations in the Finke Police districts - it is available via the National Archives CRS F315/0 Item 1949/388
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