Parachilna. Population 15.Surprisingly the town, of just 24 blocks, was surveyed in 1863 near a waterhole before there was even widespread pastoral lease holders in the Flinders Ranges but it was an important stopping point on the route from Port Augusta to the Blinman copper mines. The government well was there to provide water for pastoralists and stock drovers wanting to get to the Northern Flinders or Gammon. But more significant was the fact that the town provided access to the copper mines at Blinman which were discovered in 1859. Parachilna Gorge provided a shorter route through fewer hills to get to Blinman than other routes. More survey work was done around Parachilna in 1873 and small leaseholds were offered for sale. The Hundred of Nilpena was declared in 1877 yet no development occurred. Things changed when the great northern railway came here in 1882 on its route to Farina. The line was built a few kilometres to the west and so the government settlement of Parachilna followed market forces and moved west as well. The Parachilna siding was built in 1881 in anticipation of the railway. The Prairie Hotel moved near the siding around 1882 and the current stone hotel was built in 1905. A Post Office followed and in 1890 the government surveyed a second town of Parachilna. It never grew and the main building left today is the Parachilna Prairie Hotel known for its Flinders feral food menu (camel, goat, kangaroo and emu), its Aboriginal art gallery, Flinders foods and coffee in the hotel bar. The hotel also has some Ediacaran fossils displays of early jellyfish like organisms which emerged about 540 to 555 million years ago. These Nilpena fossils are the first known multi-organisms on earth and are of international importance and significance. The publicans own and run Nilpena Station to the west of the settlement. Near the hotel are the heritage listed Parachilna fettlers cottages and the sculpture garden of some Ediacaran fossils. At one time the town had a general store and a school from the early 20th century. It closed a few years ago.
Up in the Flinders Ranges behind the hotel is Edeowie Gorge with its Edeowie natural glass. This slag-like opaque rock or lechatelierite is found in clay baked layers which have been subjected to mineralization and oxidation. In Parachilna Gorge east of the town some land was donated to the Soldiers’ T.B. Aid Society to establish a tuberculosis sanatorium in the pristine air there. Partly due to the efforts of Ella Cleggett the Angorichina hostel opened in 1927 and treated patients until 1973. It is now a hostel for travellers. Also east of Parachilna in the Brachina Gorge is where the Ediacaran fossils were found in quartzite rocks. These marine animals occurred within the strata and are the oldest evidence of living organisms on earth. Stromatolites made up of mats of algae are the oldest forms of life but they had no bone structure or sexual reproduction. But it was these marine organisms that led to the formation of the Ediacara fauna or fossil animals which are the oldest creatures on earth. They emerged about 600 million years ago. Once stranded in pools they were fossilised into the rocks. These organisms include jellyfish, worms and other soft bodied marine creatures that differ from the algae in stromatolites because they have soft bone like structures which give them a defined shape. These multicellular organisms were the first on earth to have sexual reproduction. The rocks in which the fossils were preserved are about 600 million years old. SA declared the Ediacara Conservation Park in 2007 although the fossils were discovered decades before by Reg Sprigg and documented in 1946. Also in 2007 the fossil site was added to the Australian National Heritage List. Many specimens of these world important fossils are held in the SA Museum collections. There are other sites around the world with Ediacara fossils, using this same name, from North and South America, Africa, Europe and Asia. These fossils had to be protected because there is an international market for the sale of these rare fossils and many were stolen from this region for commercial profit before 2007.
