Road name to honour family

History was created on Friday when Darter Road in Harvey was officially renamed Wallam Road in honour of the local Aboriginal family.

Shire president Tania Jackson and chief executive Annie Riordan officiated the renaming in front of about 100 extended Wallam family members.

“The Wallam family had asked that we acknowledge this land by naming this road Wallam Road, as theirs is the only property on this road,” Ms Jackson said.

“The shire depot is at the end, so locally it was known as Depot Road although its official name was Darter Road.”

The process behind the name change has been many months in the making, but the struggle to be recognised had been going a lot longer than that according to elder Greg Little.

“It’s been a fight for a long time, but the Harvey community itself is a great group of people,” he said.

According to Mr Little’s wife Margaret, the family was not permitted in the centre of town and were marginalised to the outskirts in the 1950s.

“My dad Ted Wallam had citizenship rights so he’d come into town and have to buy everything,” she said.

“The old house here was built to further our education and so they moved us in 1963.

“It’s just been wonderful today.”

At the end of the renaming ceremony, the family celebrated at Harvey Dam with a barbecue and singalong which included a song written by Mrs Little’s sister especially for the occasion.