Plan of Land South-East of Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Proposed to be Leased for Pastoral Purposes.

Rare map showing lands south east of Alice Springs to be offered for lease and the Alice Springs Telegraph Station.

The Alice Springs Telegraph Station was sited near what was thought to be a permanent waterhole in the normally dry Todd River, named Alice Springs by W.W. Mills after the wife of the Superintendent of Telegraphs and Postmaster General of South Australia, Sir Charles Todd, who was the driving force for constructing the Overland Telegraph Station. In 1861–62, John McDouall Stuart had led an expedition through Central Australia, to the west of what later became Alice Springs, thereby establishing a route from the south of the continent to the north. The telegraph line was completed in 1872, it traced Stuart’s route and opened up the interior for permanent settlement. A European settlement named after John McDouall Stuart was started ten years later with the construction of a repeater station on the Australian Overland Telegraph Line, which linked Adelaide to Darwin and Great Britain.  The nearby settlement of Stuart was renamed Alice Springs on 31 August 1933.