Construction of Port Adelaide’s fourth customs house commenced in 1878, following demolition of the timber customs house established on the same spot in 1840.
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.
Opening in 1933, inheriting the place of a cinema which had existed on the spot since 1910, the Rex Theatre was a popular cinema on Rundle Street that was demolished in 1961.
Sailors' aid societies were first established at Port Adelaide in the 1860s to provide accommodation, entertainment, moral guidance and religious instruction to visiting mariners, and most remained in operation until the late twentieth century.
Semaphore migrant hostel appears to have been home to young single men working in the area. Its proximity to the beach provided at least one attraction for residents.
Historical Place| By Dr Karen Agutter, the University of Adelaide, & Catherine Manning, Migration Museum |1940s, 1950s
Sir Charles Todd was a leader in the fields of meteorology, astronomy and communications, and is best remembered for masterminding the construction of the Overland Telegraph Line.