Chirritta

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Chirritta Station is a sheep station in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. It sits about 46 km south of Roebourne and 86 km northeast of Pannawonica, with part of the Maitland River running through it.

Chirritta was started in 1872 by Donald Norman McLeod. He later returned to Victoria in 1882, bought Yannarie Estate near Portland, and then came back to Western Australia to acquire Minilya Station. In 1884 Chirritta reportedly sold for £18,000.

By 1888 the property was up for auction for D.N. McLeod and Company, stocked with about 17,000 sheep and around 200 cattle. In 1893 it was owned by Richardson, Edgar and Gillam. In 1899 Gillam introduced merino rams to the flock, and later that year a cyclone brought 3 inches of rain and tore the roof from the old homestead.

Gillam became the sole owner before 1905 and sold Chirritta in 1907 to the Withnell brothers, who owned nearby Karratha Station. At that time Chirritta had about 16,000 sheep and produced 288 bales of wool.

In 1912 there were reports of leprosy among Aboriginal people living at Chirritta. The Withnells sold the property in 1920 to Clarence Meares for about £30,000, and it had roughly 22,000 sheep then.