Alice Springs

Alice Springs is the third largest town in the Northern Territory, Australia. Popularly known as "the Alice" or simply "Alice", Alice Springs is situated in the geographic centre of Australia.  

The site is known as Mparntwe to its original inhabitants, the Arrernte, who have lived in the Central Australian desert in and around what is now Alice Springs for thousands of years. "Alice" in the English language was named by surveyor William Whitfield Mills after Lady Alice Todd (née Alice Gillam Bell), wife of the telegraph pioneer Sir Charles Todd. Alice Springs has a population of 28,605, which makes up 12.2 percent of the territory's population. Alice Springs is nearly equidistant from Adelaide and Darwin. 

The town straddles the usually dry Todd River on the northern side of the MacDonnell Ranges. The surrounding region is known as Central Australia, or the Red Centre, an arid environment consisting of several different deserts. In Alice Springs temperatures can vary dramatically, with an average maximum temperature in summer of 35.6 °C (96.1 °F) and an average minimum temperature in winter of 5.1 °C (41.2 °F). Alice Springs has faced many issues in recent years, largely stemming from an increase in crime and a strong racial divide that has existed for years in the town.

The Arrernte Aboriginal people have made their home in the Central Australian desert in and around the site of the future Alice Springs for thousands of years, with evidence suggesting Indigenous occupation of the region dating back at least 30,000 years. The Aboriginal name for Alice Springs is Mparntwe. Many Arrernte people also live in communities outside of Alice Springs and on outstations. 

Three major groups: the Western, Eastern and Central Arrernte people live in Central Australia, their traditional land including the area of Alice Springs and MacDonnell Ranges. They have also been referred to as Aranda, Arrarnta, Arunta and other similar spellings. There are five dialects of the Arrernte language: South-eastern, Central, Northern, Eastern and North-eastern.

Arrernte country is rich with mountain ranges, waterholes and gorges, which create a variety of natural habitats. The Arrernte people have set aside conservation areas in which various animal and other species are protected. According to the Arrernte traditional stories, in the desert surrounding Alice Springs, the landscape was shaped by caterpillars, wild dogs, travelling boys, two sisters, euros and other ancestral figures. 

The numerous sites of traditional importance in and around Alice Springs include Anthwerrke (Emily Gap), Akeyulerre (Billy Goat Hill), Ntaripe (Heavitree Gap), Atnelkentyarliweke (Anzac Hill) and Alhekulyele (Mt Gillen).

In 1861–62, John McDouall Stuart led an expedition through Central Australia, to the west of what later became Alice Springs, thereby establishing a route from the south of the continent to the north.

A European settlement was started ten years later with the construction of a repeater station on the Overland Telegraph Line (OTL), which linked Adelaide to Darwin and Great Britain. The OTL was completed in 1872. It traced Stuart's route and opened up the interior for permanent settlement. The telegraph station was sited near what was thought to be a permanent waterhole in the normally dry Todd River. The settlement was optimistically named Alice Springs after the wife of the former Postmaster General of South Australia, Sir Charles Todd. The Todd River was named after Sir Charles. 

It was not until alluvial gold was discovered at Arltunga, 100 kilometres (62 mi) east of the present Alice Springs, in 1887 that any significant European settlement occurred. The town's first substantial building was the Stuart Town Gaol in Parson's Street which was built in 1909 when the town had a European population of fewer than 20 people. Many of the gaol's first prisoners were first contact aboriginal men incarcerated for killing cattle. The first aircraft, piloted by Francis Stewart Briggs landed in 1921. Central Australia's first hospital, Adelaide House, was built in 1926 when the European population of the town was about 40. It was not until 1929 when the train line to Alice was built, that the town's European population began to grow. Aboriginal centralians outnumbered European Centralians until the mid-1930s. Until 31 August 1933, the town was officially known as Stuart.

The original mode of British-Australian transportation in the outback were camel trains, operated by immigrants from Pathan tribes in the North-West Frontier of then-British India (present-day Pakistan); known locally as Afghan cameleers based at Hergott Springs, or Marree as it is now known. Many cameleers moved to Alice Springs in 1929 when the railway finally reached the town. They lived on the block where the town council now is transporting goods from the rail head to stations and settlements to the north. A gold rush in Tennant Creek in 1932 kept the wheels of the Alice Springs economy flourishing until the outbreak of World War II. 

Alice Springs was connected to Darwin by rail on 4 February 2004, when the first passenger train arrived in Darwin from Adelaide.