The
Djerimanga (also known as Wulna) people are recognised as the
traditional owners and first inhabitants of an area, from the present day site of Humpty Doo east into the
Adelaide River wetlands. Their way of life remained unchanged until the first contact with European explorers in the 19th century, most likely during the 1864 expedition to explore the areas surrounding the Adelaide River, led by
Boyle Travers Finniss. In September 1869,
Surveyor General of South Australia,
George Goyder, completed work to divide the hinterland surrounding the present day Litchfield Shire into parcels. These parcels were subsequently divided into smaller allotments, and made available to settlers as pastoral leases and freehold titles. Following the discovery of gold near
Pine Creek during the 1880s, the subsequent influx of Chinese miners to the
Northern Territory led to a high demand for food crops such as
rice. Rice planted on the floodplains near Humpty Doo was used to meet this demand, with some success. Experiments with other tropical crops, including
sugar cane,
coffee and
rubber, were attempted, most of these planted in the vicinity of
Beatrice Hill to the east of the present day town. Experiments were made with livestock too and it was hoped that the banks of the Adelaide River could be developed to include loading facilities for live cattle export. By 1887, plantations on the floodplains had been abandoned due to the financial difficulties of the land owners. Despite this, rubber trees and coffee bushes showed particular potential. A single harvest of 10 tons of coffee beans was exported to
Melbourne during the short lived experiment. In 1910, the name "Umpity Doo" first appeared, to describe buildings and improvements on a survey plan of Agricultural Lease No. 28, held by Oscar Herbert. Herbert died in 1974 at nearby
Koolpinyah Station. In 1954, after some experimentation by
CSIRO and based on previous successful rice crops, a joint Australia-
U.S. company called Territory Rice Ltd. was formed and established the
Humpty Doo Rice Project, with a plan to irrigate the sub-coastal plain of the Adelaide River in order to commercially produce rice. The rice project was 20 km east of the present town, on part of the Humpty Doo Station where the name "Humpty Doo" was first used. The plan was a complete failure due to several factors: an invasion of geese, soil that was too
saline, and an insufficient amount of drainage, all combined with poor management. The company gave up the land to the government in 1962. The
irrigation dam, called
Fogg Dam, still exists and is a good site for bird watching. Local resident, Neville Skewes, opened a small store on Mount Bundey Road (now the Arnhem Highway) in 1967. At this time, there was very little development, with most of the surrounding area being bushland. On 11 September 1971, after being granted a liquor licence, Skewes and his wife Helen opened the Humpty Doo Hotel-Motel. The opening of the Hotel coincided with further improvements to the road east to
Kakadu and
Arnhem Land, and encouraged further urbanisation of the area around Humpty Doo. In 1982, the
Royal Australian Navy opened the Humpty Doo Transmitting Station. This replaced a facility at
Coonawarra East that was destroyed by
Cyclone Tracy in December 1974. The station supports the naval base , located in Darwin. On 21 July 2007, the town played host to the first of the "Triple J goes AWOL" concerts, sponsored and organised by the national youth radio station
Triple J. ==Attractions==