Yokine history: Dog Swamp, a golf course and a post-war boom

Yokine took its name from a swamp and its shape from a golf course, and almost all of it was built in the three decades after the Second World War.

How Yokine got its name

The City of Stirling says Yokine comes from an Aboriginal word for native dog, chosen because the area is near Dog Swamp. A list of Perth suburb names produced with Landgate adds that the suburb was named after Yokine Hill and the Mount Yokine golf course.

Before the suburb

The City of Stirling’s thematic history records that the Whadjuk leader Yellagonga lived by turns at Dog Swamp, Herdsman Lake and Galup.

Yokine Hill, about 79 metres high, was used as a survey point. Thomas Walters held a very large grant here from about 1840, and the City’s collection records houses, roads, wells, orchards and market gardens on his land by 1838.

How it grew

By the mid-1890s Wanneroo Road had a macadamised surface. In the early 1900s the area held piggeries, poultry farms and market gardens, and after the First World War speculative estates such as Tennyson Park Estate were offered for sale.

Western Australian Golf Ltd owned land here from at least 1927, and the golf course was developed in the 1920s and opened in about 1930. In 1960 Parliament approved the land becoming an A-class reserve for a golf course.

Before the Second World War there was just one house, at the eastern end of Royal Street. By the early 1950s much of the land around the golf course was built on, the south grew quickly in the 1960s, and the suburb was nearly complete by the late 1970s.

Places that tell the story

The Western Australian Golf Club course still sits at the heart of the suburb.

Dog Swamp Shopping Centre opened in 1967.

Native Dog Swamp, the wetland behind the name, is protected under an Environmental Protection Policy.

Yokine today

Yokine is in the City of Stirling.

More about Yokine

For what Yokine is like to live in now, read our Yokine suburb profile. If you own a property in Yokine and are thinking about selling, start with buyers for your property.

Sources

• City of Stirling: Yokine
• City of Stirling Art and History Collection: Yokine
• City of Stirling: Thematic History
• Perth suburbs Aboriginal names (with acknowledgement to Landgate)

Dates and names are drawn from the sources above. Where sources differ, we have said so or given an approximate date.

By Key Performance Real Estate, 338 Beaufort Street, Perth