Yeelanna, South Australia

Yeelanna South Australia
Yeelanna
Coordinates
Population	230 (2011 census)
Established	1904
Postcode(s)	5632
Location	398 km (247 mi) W of Adelaide 77 km (48 mi) N of Port Lincoln
LGA(s)	District Council of Lower Eyre Peninsula
State electorate(s)	Flinders
Federal Division(s)	Grey

Yeelanna(Aboriginal word meaning Local Spring) is a town on the Lower Eyre Peninsula in South Australia, 77 kilometres north of Port Lincoln.

Yeelanna has a rich history, with the first settlers coming to the district in 1904.

The township was surveyed in 1908, and had a policemen in the early days who lived in a tent and there were two brick cells there for the wrong doers. A large dam was dug in 1909, and supplied the township in the early days, and later was connected to the Yeelanna oval to water it for football and cricket until around 2003–04 when the oval was last used for the Karkoo/Yeelanna cricket club. A butcher shop was their in the early days, a blacksmith shop, a 19-room hotel, from 1912 until 1924 when it was demolished, and the stone was transported to Kimba to build the current Kimba Hotel. Also there was a bank, a bakery until the 1950s, a boarding house that opened in 1910, and a primary school that opened in 1908 and closed in 1972, and is now Bellwood Museum. There was a Railway Station, 5 railway cottages that were demolished in the mid to late '70s, a couple mechanical businesses. The town still had two shops in the early 1980s, with one being also a post office, with the last shop closing being the Yeelanna General Store in the late '80s, There was petrol bowsers, there was 5 fuel agencies and there was still 2 in the '80s or '90s. There is still a local mechanical business called AUTOAFFECT, owned by Shaun and Mia Cain.

The town still has a Hall with public toilets, a post office, that is now in one of the front rooms of the Yeelanna Hall, grain silos with railway lines that transports grain by train from the silo's, that have been there since the 1960s, and fourteen houses. The oval part of the recreational park has been sold due to being no longer being used,and is owned by Ashley and Lynley Brook where they have had a brand new house built that they live in with their family, and also had a large shed built, where they based for their spraying and windrowing business. But the land of the recreational park where the old toilets and old tennis/netball courts are is still owned by the council, and is still there for recreational use. There is still a Uniting Church, there is still a CFS, an Agriculture Bureau that has existed since 1908, a museum called Bellwood Museum, the town has a Cementry, but know longer gets used. The town still has a table tennis club, that plays all of its home matches in the Yeelanna Hall on 4 Table Tennis tables, and was established in 1939, and last won back-to-back Premierships in 2006 and 2007, and has won 15 Premierships competing in the Great Flinders Table Tennis Association. Many great players from the club have won the Eyre Peninsula Singles Championships.

The town is still represented in a local football/Netball club called United Yeelanna, that in 2014 won the football Premierships in the A,B,and colts (under 16's) grades, and in the netball won the Premierships in the A-Reserves, and B-grade, and also is represented in a local cricket club called Karkoo/Yeelanna, Yeelanna had a tennis club until the late '80s, and many Yeelanna local people still play for the nearby Karkoo Tennis Club, which went back to 1 team for the 2010/11 season in which they won a premiership. The club went back to 2 teams for the next season, with the teams being Karkoo Blue and Karkoo White, and in 2011/12,2013/14, and 2014/15 Karkoo Blue won premierships, with all these clubs being based at Karkoo, only 11 kilometres away from Yeelanna.

The Yeelanna district, is known for its extremely fertile farming land, where nearly all farms in the district are continuously cropped.

Yeelanna Uniting Church is part of the Western Eyre Uniting Churches Parish. The Church is located in Bell Street, opposite the museum and welcomes people from many different Christian backgrounds. The Minister from Cummins regularly leads services at 10:30 am on Sundays. A Sunday school and youth group operate from the church.