A beautiful area, important for Indigenous people and a haven for wildlife.
The Humpty Doo Rice Project
Fogg Dam is located in the western part of the Adelaide River floodplain in an area of great significance to the local Limilngan-Wulna Aboriginal people.
Fogg Dam was the focus of national interest in the 1950s through development of the historic Humpty Doo Rice Project. If successful, the project would have been one of the largest farming developments in the world and a granary for Asia. It was supported by wealthy American investors associated with the Hollywood entertainment industry. The location in a remote part of the Territory created images of taming a frontier and the name, Humpty Doo, was unusual and easy to remember.[2] The bombing of Darwin in 1942-43 had highlighted the vulnerability of the continent’s north so the Australian Government was keen promote its development and increase the population to improve security. Fogg Dam was a key part of the Humpty Doo Rice project.
In 1956 the NT Legislative Council unanimously approved an agreement between the Australian Government and an American/Australian Company Territory Rice Ltd. (TRL), giving sole concessions for 15 years and an option to lease over 300,000 ha (750,000 acres) of subcoastal plains for growing rice. The development plan required 12,000ha to be developed in five years, 40,000ha in ten years and 100,000ha in 15 years. The company would then have the right to select 200,000ha for agricultural development leases with at least half to be subdivided and sold to individual farmers or worked on a share-farming arrangement. The Australian Government provided considerable assistance including technical expertise. American interests provided the bulk of the capital and expert advice on tropical agriculture and engineering.[3]
The Chairman of Directors was Allen Chase. Entrepreneur and American TV personality, Art Linklater, was one of the Directors.[4] The project was supported with advice from the CSIRO Kimberley Research Station based at Kununurra.
TRL had a camp for its workers near where Middle Point village now exists. It was known then as Humpty Doo and 100 workers lived there. They had a Sports and Social Club as well as a Humpty Doo Soccer team that competed with Darwin teams.[5]
Fogg dam was built in 1956 by the RAAF Construction Squadron, under contract to TRL, to provide fresh water for the young rice crop. It cost $100,000[6] and filled in the first wet season, February 1957.[7] At the time it was built it had a water holding capacity of 3,400 megalitres.[8] A spillway was built at each end of the wall. These were inadequate so an ‘emergency opening’ in the dam wall was made to allow water to escape when the dam was at risk of overflowing.[9] In 1962-63 a steel pipe with a wooden check board gate was installed through the dam wall to control the water flow.[10]
