The historic toll house at the base of the South Eastern Freeway was constructed in 1841 as a means for funding road construction from Adelaide to Mount Barker. As the only toll road in the colony of South Australia, this system generated significant public hostility and did not even come close to covering construction and maintenance expenses. The building’s use as a toll house was therefore stopped in 1847 to great public relief.
Originally an informal service provided by a ragtag assortment of 'watermen' and their rowboats, Port Adelaide's ferries evolved into the preferred link between Port Adelaide and Lefevre Peninsula until the opening of the Birkenhead Bridge in 1940.
The Port Adelaide Institute served as a centre for social and cultural activities within Port Adelaide for over a century, and was the predecessor of the South Australian Maritime Museum and Port Adelaide Public Library.
Installed in the 1860s as Port Adelaide's first fixed navigational beacon, and later used at South Neptune Island, the Port Adelaide Lighthouse today functions as an iconic museum display in the heart of the Port.
Radicalism has been inherent in South Australian history from its founding as a free settlement. Based upon the English radical liberal thought of its founders, the State's reputation grew as a progressive colony and the first to entirely separate church from state.