Editing Litchfield National Park (section)

==History==

===Early history===
[[File:Blythe-Homestead.JPG|200px|left|thumb|Blythe homestead]]
[[Australian Aborigines|Aboriginal]] people have lived throughout the area for thousands of years.  It is important to the [[Kungarakan]] and [[Marranunggu]] peoples for whom their ancestral spirits, still considered actively present in the landscape, played a seminal role in forming the landscape, plants and animals of this area.

===Recent history===
The park was named after [[Frederick Henry Litchfield]], a member of the Finniss Expedition that travelled from [[South Australia]] in 1864. This was the first European expedition to visit the Top End of Australia by land and it was their aim to explore as widely as possible and establish a settlement at Escape Cliffs, on the mouth of the [[Adelaide River]]. Previous attempts at settlement of Australia's northern coast at [[Fort Dundas]], [[Raffles Bay]] and [[Port Essington]] had already failed.
[[File:Lost-city-Litchfield.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Lost city rock formation]]
The surveyor and soldier, Boyle Travers Finniss, was chosen by the South Australian government to be their government Resident in the Northern Territory. His decision to choose an area near Escape Cliffs for settlement was disastrous. The settlers suffered from inadequate food rations and infected mosquito bites. Finniss was disliked by the settlers who had accompanied him and argued with his officials.

The area which is now known as Litchfield National Park was first visited by Europeans in September 1865, when Litchfield led a small group to explore the Daly River. His diary of Monday, 25 September describes his travels:

"Monday, 25 – Three horses look as if they were going to knock up; will give them a day's spell here.  There are fine plains here, splendidly grassed and watered; small belts of stunted gum, vaquois, fan palm, and honeysuckle.  Most of the timber is small, but plenty of it is adapted for station purposes.  The country from here to Manton's Creek on the Adelaide (River) is as fine a country for stock as I have ever seen, the whole of it being well grassed and well watered at all times of the year."
[[File:Litchfield National Park-Termite mounds.jpg|200px|right|thumb|Termite mounds]]
The discovery of [[copper]] and [[tin]] led to the establishment of several small scale subsistence mining operations. Pastoral occupation also began in the 1870s, with loggers and graziers facing the difficult conditions of torrential rain, mosquitoes and sandflies.

In 1888 Mt Tolmer became the site of the first tin mine and produced a continual supply of tin. Bamboo Creek's tin mining operation began at Makanbarr, A Mak Mak Marranunggu campsite, in 1906. High-quality tin was often found in the ancient riverbeds and on the surface of the hills. All it needed was to be bagged and sold. Small groups operated this way for the next 30 years. By 1941 miners began following the tin-bearing seams into the hills using picks and shovels, and loading the ore into wagons to be pushed or pulled back to the mines' entrances.

Charles Stead, Thomas Niciloff and Charles Claydon took out the first real lease and set about turning the mine into a commercial venture, with the assistance of local Mak Mak Marranunggu men and women and some Europeans.  However, the mine was closed in 1951 after a large flood filled many of the shafts with water. A relic of the old tin mine at Bamboo Creek stands as a reminder of the difficult conditions endured by the pioneer miners.

In 1924 a small homestead was built by the Sargent family on their leased land in the lowlands near Tolmer Falls where there was reliable water and reasonable grazing for their cattle. Their farm proved successful and in 1928 they built Blyth Homestead as an [[outstation (Australian agriculture)|outstation]] a little further south, so their cattle could take advantage of the good grazing among the paperbarks in this area.  Typical of other structures of that time, the homestead is supported with cypress pine tied together with heavy wire and covered with corrugated iron. The family was able to farm their own vegetable and fruit crops, and held up to 13,500 head of cattle, due to the permanent water nearby. After 40 years, the Sargent family sold the lease to the Townsend family who farmed until the early 1960s. The abandoned homestead stands as a stark reminder of the tough conditions graziers faced.
[[File:Litchfield National Park-31.jpg|right|thumb|Natural forest]]
Logging of [[paperbark]], [[cypress]] and [[Nauclea orientalis|Leichhardt pines]] began in 1948 in the north-western section of the park. Again, Aboriginal people assisted and ex-army equipment was utilized to take the timber to the mill where it was prepared for local builders.

[[Uranium]] was discovered outside what is now Litchfield's eastern boundary in August 1949, by a local prospector, Jack White. Australia's first fully operational uranium mine was opened at Rum Jungle, and underground mining occurred from 1950 to 1953. The name Rum Jungle is derived from an accident that occurred in 1871. A bullock-wagon load of rum, destined for the construction gangs, was said to have been bogged near a patch of jungle on the crocodile-inhabited East [[Finniss River (Northern Territory)|Finniss River]] - the bullockies untethered the oxen and set about drinking the rum, having one of history's most glorious binges. Production from the open cut area started in 1953 and proved to be one of the largest economic influences in the development of the Top End, with sales to the United Kingdom for their atomic weapons program. The mine closed in 1971.

The park was originally part of Stapleton Station, [[Tipperary Station]] and Camp Creek Station pastoral leases. The pastoral activity persisted until the declaration of the area as a national park when in 1985, the lessees of Stapleton Station negotiated the surrender of the pastoral lease and it was subsequently taken up by the Conservation Land Corporation.