Jackson Wickham has a lifelong connection to the Murray River.
The keen local historian, 23, has learnt almost all there is to know about paddle steamers. He has even built his own and written a book about them.
Mr Wickham has heard about the 1956 floods and the impact on his home town of Renmark, in South Australia’s Riverland, for as long as he remembers.
“I was six years old when they had the 50th anniversary of the ’56 flood in Renmark,” he said.
“There were all the photos and videos [of the floods] but this [one] board stood out as something uniquely Renmark that everyone related to the floods.”
The board was a flood-gauge extension, built in a hurry during one of the state’s worst natural disasters on record, to allow locals to continue tracking the rapidly rising river levels at the old town wharf.
“The [water] went over the top of the [original gauge] so they had to very quickly paint up an extension that went up another three feet to 30 feet and that was a little above street level,” Mr Wickham said.
“That was where they drew the line and said ‘All out after this’, [we] can’t guarantee the safety of the town after that because it’s being held entirely by flood banks and that sort of thing.
“It ended up going up to 30 feet, seven and three quarter inches.”
One flood and out
The extension board was only used during the 1956 flood event before it made its way to a dedicated display at the local museum Olivewood Historic Homestead.
The site is the original home of Charles Chaffey, one of the Chaffey brothers who helped establish the Renmark and Mildura irrigation districts.
Mr Wickham, who is a regular historical consultant at Olivewood, said it felt right to bring this piece of history back to life as the Murray River faced its worst flood in decades.
“The original gauge is a bit worn and barely legible so I went down there with a bit of baking paper and traced it, got all the font and lettering the same, went home and painted up a full-sized replica,” he said.
“When you’re tracing every letter individually you notice all the inconsistencies.
“The eight is upside down … you think, ‘Ah well, a bit of the character on it’, or the ‘r’ on ‘after’, when you start tracing it you realise it’s not done by a stencil, it’s obviously freehand.”
The river enthusiast also noted the inch increments on the replica gauge extension have been recalibrated as some of the original markings were slightly off.
“This time you get an accurate reading, provided it’s put in the right spot,” Mr Wickham said.
The replica flood-gauge extension is now in action on the Renmark riverfront near a newer metal gauge.
Once floodwaters recede, Mr Wickham will donate it to Olivewood to sit alongside the original for comparison.
“Every 30 to 40 years we get a high flood [in the Riverland] so if this marker doesn’t wear out in that time, we’ll probably use it again,” he said.
