Yeelanna (an Aboriginal word meaning "Local Spring") is a town on the Lower Eyre Peninsula in South Australia located north of Port Lincoln. It is on the Tod Highway and Eyre Peninsula Railway between Lock and Cummins. The Yeelanna district is known for its extremely fertile farming land, where nearly all farms in the district are continuously cropped.
History
The aboriginal Nauo Tribe were the first people in the area. In the early days the area was known as Shannon and the first white settlers came to the district in 1904. The township was surveyed in 1908 and was first called Bellwood, but the name of the towns railway siding called Yeelanna stuck. Yeelanna had a policeman in the early days who lived in a tent, and there were two brick cells there for the wrong-doers. A large dam was dug in 1909 and supplied the township in the early days, and later was connected to the Yeelanna oval to water it for football and cricket. Yeelanna had a butcher shop, a blacksmith shop and a 19-room hotel in the early days. The hotel opened in 1912 and closed in 1924, it was then dismantled and the stone was transported to Kimba to build the current Kimba Gateway Hotel. Also, there was a bank, a bakery until the 1950s, a boarding house that opened in 1910 and a primary school that opened in 1908 and closed in 1972. The school is now the Bellewood Museum. There was a railway station, five railway cottages that were demolished in the mid to late 1970s, and a couple of mechanical businesses. The town had two shops in the early 1980s, with one being also a post office. The last shop closed was the Yeelanna General Store in the late 1980s. There were five fuel agents in town, with at least two still being their in the 1990s. There is still one mechanical business.
The old oval owned by the Yeelanna Memorial Association is used to put in a crop by the Yeelanna Memorial Association to help with their funds. The Recrerational Park with the new oval was created in the 1950s and the new oval was used until around 2003–04 when the new oval was last used by the Karkoo/Yeelanna cricket club. The part of the recreation ground where the new oval was, has been sold and a new house and shed built on it where a spraying and windrowing business is run from, but the part of the recreation ground where the toilets, tennis and netball courts are remain in public ownership.