Tenterfield and Fulton

The tiny town of Fulton, Missouri is famous for Sir Winston Churchill's "Iron Curtain Speech" delivered in March of 1946 in which he warned of the Cold War with the Soviets. It is an iconic speech that put Fulton, Missouri on the map.

Well Tenterfield in New South Wales has two icons that put IT on the map. The first person some Americans may know was singer/songwriter Peter Allen. I was not familier with Peter Allen's work but I have since learned that Hugh Jackman played Peter Allen in Broadway's The Boy from Oz which Jackman won a Tony. Peter Allen was from Tenterfield and wrote the song The Tenterfield Saddler about his grandfather. Put the name of a town in a song and the rest is history.

But perhaps the more significant event in Tenterfield's history occurred much earlier and has had a much longer lasting impact. Sir Henry Parkes delivered a speech in 1889 which catalyzed the movement for the federation of Australia. The Federation of Australia came into being in 1901, but it was Parkes' speech in 1889 at the Tenterfield School of Arts which spurred the movement. Until 1901, all of Australia's colonies (Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, and Western Australia) all acted as independent countries almost. Each was governed as an independent British Colony. One had to pass through customs to go from state to state!

So if it wasn't for Mr. Parkes, Australia wouldn't be the country it is today. Parkes was asked to come speak in Tenterfield and he threw together some impromptu remarks in his Tenterfield hotel the night before. Who would have thought that that one little speech would lead to the birth of a nation? Parkes is revered as much as the founding fathers of the United States are.

It certainly was an event for Fulton, Missouri to host Churchill, but did the world have any idea what the man would say and how significant his words would be? I don't think the town of Tenterfield had a clue what would happen either. But that is how history goes sometimes. The smallest towns can have the biggest impacts. And just a few words can put a town on the map forever.