Cossack is a ghost town at the entrance of the Harding River on the Pilbara coast. The township was established by
Walter Padbury, the first settler in the region, who named it Tien Tsin after the barque
which bought him to the area. In 1871 the name was changed to Cossack in honour of the ship
bringing the Western Australian Governor to the area. The town site was declared in 1872.
Cossack was the first port on the north-west coast and the port for Roebourne. It became an
important port for the pastoral industry which had 39,000 sheep in the
Pilbara by 1869. It was also the port for hundreds of prospectors flocking to the
Pilbara gold rush in the 1880s. From 1866 Cossack was a centre for pearl shelling. By the
1870s more than 80 boats were operating from the port; at one time the town had distinctive
Chinese, Malay and Japanese areas and, during the lay-up season from November to March many
hundreds of people lived in Chinatown.
As Broome developed the pearl shell industry moved there and Cossack declined in importance.
One factor in the comparative decline was the construction of the jetty at Broome which
permitted steamers from Singapore to come alongside to tranship cargo; a jetty was not
built at Cossack.
Several substantial buildings were erected in the 1880s and 1890s, some of them still
intact. But by then Cossack was fading away and has not recovered.
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Cossack Courthouse, built in 1895, is built of local stone and bricks bought to the
port as ballast. The roof rises in stages to a clerestory which adds scale to the
building. It was built during Cossack's declining years and now contains the Social
History Museum.
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| Cossack, 2 August 2004.
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Salt flats inland of Cossack from Tien Tsin lookout.
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| Cossack, 2 August 2004.
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