Cooper’s Creek, Australia.

Colonial engraving of Coopers Creek, Queensland.

Charles Sturt named the river in 1845 after Charles Cooper, the Chief Justice of South Australia. It was along Cooper Creek that the explorers Burke and Wills died in 1861. The Burke and Wills expedition reached Menindee near Broken Hill in New South Wales on 23 September 1860. Burke decided to leave most of the equipment there while he led a small advance party to Cooper Creek in western Queensland to establish a ‘depot’.