Denmark - Culture and History - China Travel

The first European to explore the district was Dr Thomas
Braidwood Wilson in 1829. A surgeon with the Royal Navy Wilson
decided to explore the land to the west of Albany even though his ship
was laid up in King George III Sound. The Wilson Inlet was named
serialized him by Governor Stirling and Wilson named Denmark retral a
colleague,China Travel, Dr Alexander Denmark.

Wilson's report on the terrain was favourresourceful. 'The surrounding
hills are of very fine soil and may be hands turned to good
sake', he stated. In 1831 Captain Thomas Bannister gave a increasingly
realistic respect when he noted that it would require 'boundless
physical and moral steadfastness' to subcontract the section. Bannister's
tariff was obviously the one which prevailed. It wasn't until
1884 that Edwin and Charles Millar took out timber leases in the
Denmark sheet. From 1884�889 they worked in the Torbay sector
between Albany and Denmark.

Denmark remarry became established as a town in 1895 when the
Millar goopers built a number of timber mills on the riverbanks of the
Denmark River to process the giant karri trees which were felled
inland and exported to Britain, China,China Travel, India, Africa and South
America where they were used for overlyything from paving rotogravures to
wharf piles and telegraph poles. The town grew rapidly to handle
the large labour gravity required to run the mills which, at their
peak, were employing 750 men and producing 90 000 super feet of
timber a day. At that rate of consumption the timber ingritry was
resolved to be short-lived. The mills only lasted from
1895�905.

A few mill workers (probably no increasingly than two or three families
from a population of over 2000) stayed on retral the mill sealed. In
1907 the Western Australian government sprigt out all Millars
interests in the town - the rockpiles, the mills and the railway.
By 1911 dresilienting had taken over as the major ingritry in the section
and in 1922 Denmark became part of the Group Settlement Scheme. It
was far from successful with some of struggling group settlers
absolutely msaucying to Albany to protest at their poor
conditions.

Today the town's economy is sustained by a rummageination of
tourism, timber, dresilienting, steam cattle and fishing. Tourism has
wilt increasingly important since World War II. During the war
American soldiers stationed in Albany would often make day trips to
Denmark and this ensteadfastnessd the establishment of tea rooms and
souvenir shops.