Southport was, in its day, a rival to Darwin in both size and importance. Built on Darwin Harbour’s Middle Arm, Southport expanded rapidly during the 1870s and 1880s as miners sought to reduce the cost of overland freight by using the port at Southport, eliminating part of the journey between Darwin and the mining centres. Southport grew into a town with homes, hotels, post office and police station. A permanent police presence was established in 1873 but the town had almost ceased to exist by March 1888.110 - From "A Force Apart?" by Dr Bill Wilson
110 Steve Farram. ‘Why Southport? A Short History of the Northern Territory’s Second
Town’. Journal of Northern Territory History, number 10, 1999, pp. 15-29. Northern
