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Well, and so they moved into Alice Springs. Johannsen bought a block of land in Todd Street and built a house on
it for the family.
In the 1930s, Johannsen pioneered the first mail drive to Arltunga. During this time, the Johannsens’ house
was used as the office of Connellan Airways (later Connair), until the Second World War. With the outbreak of the
war, the army moved into Alice Springs. The hospital was taken over by military authorities and the house was
commandeered for use as army sisters’ quarters.
During the war, the Johannsens lived at Strangways Ranges, 80 kilometres north of Alice Springs. Kurt Johannsen
had discovered mica here and the family involved themselves in the mining operation, until the Allied Works
Council, which urgently needed the mica for military aircraft, took over the mine. In 1946, the family moved
back to Alice Springs. The move was prompted by a severe injury incurred by Johannsen while gold mining at
Winnecke.
At the time of Johannsen’s death, he was a well-respected member of the Alice Springs community. He was a
foundation member of the Alice Springs Progress Association, and the Alice Springs Community Club, as well as
being an ardent worker for the Methodist Church. A photo of Johannsen taken toward the end of the war shows
him as a slight man, with balding hair and high-set cheekbones. He was buried in Alice Springs in 1951, his entire
family being present at one of the largest funerals seen in Alice Springs at the time. His wife outlived him by
eight years, and died in 1959, during her fiftieth year in the Territory. The Johannsens’ first child, Elsa, married
into the Petrick family of Alice Springs, and their daughter Trudy married into the Hayes family, a prominent
pastoralist family of Central Australia. Johannsen Street in Alice Springs commemorates their contribution to the
development of Alice Springs.
J Petrick, Street Names Tell History, nd.
J PETRICK, Vol 1.JOHANNSEN, KURT GERHARDT (1915– ), labourer, driver, road train operator, miner, pilot and businessman
was born at Deep Well, Northern Territory, on 11 January 1915, the son of Gerhardt Andreas Johannsen and his
wife, Marie Ottilie, nee Hoffman. The Reverend Bruce Plowman, an early patrol padre, recorded the baptism in
his book The Man from Oodnadatta: ‘On Sunday afternoon the family gathered in the dining room and after a short
service little Kurt Gerhardt was solemnly baptised, to the joy of his parents... ’
In 1929, the Johannsen family moved from Deep Well to Alice Springs. Johannsen senior, a Danish stonemason
and builder, had contracted poliomyelitis and this disabling affliction came on top of seven years of drought at
Deep Well, which led to the family walking off the property and taking their few possessions to Alice Springs.
It fell to the lot of the 14 year old Kurt to earn what he could to support the family. He carted nightsoil and garbage
with a Dodge truck; his father had obtained the contract for the service but was too weak to work. Young Johannsen
also carted firewood for the bakery and the hotel and carried out repairs to windmills and pumps, for which he
had obtained plenty of practice at Deep Well. Later on, he acquired an old Lister engine and a 32-volt generator
with which he charged batteries for those people who owned radios in the town, earning two Shillings per battery.
He also supplied 32-volt power lights for homes.
Casting around for other avenues of income the Johannsens acquired the mail contract from Alice Springs to
Arltunga, Winnecke, Mount Riddock and McDonald Downs. This was only a fortnightly service, so Johannsen
was able to assist Sam Irvine on the Alice Springs to Tennant Creek and Birdum mail run. Sam Irvine was a pioneer
of the motor mail era in the north of South Australia and in the Northern Territory. In 1925, he won the contract
for the Oodnadatta to Alice Springs and Arltunga mail runs. As the railway line pushed northwards, Irvine’s mail
services underwent change; his Arltunga run was taken over by the Johannsens and he became the contractor for
the much longer Tennant Creek service, which was later extended to Newcastle Waters and Birdum.
Eventually, when Irvine’s health deteriorated, the Johannsens acquired the Alice Springs to Birdum mail
contract and the Dodge Four truck which had served on the sanitary and garbage service and later on the Arltunga
mail run, was replaced by a bigger vehicle which was a composite of various mechanical components put together
by the mechanically talented Kurt Johannsen to carry loads of up to eight tons. During the Wet Season the mail
truck terminated at Powell Creek and the mails were taken further north on horseback.
As Gerhardt Johannsen’s health improved, he established a passenger service that operated in tandem with
the mail run. Every Sunday the mail coach, which was an eight seat Studebaker President, left Alice Springs
for Tennant Creek where it arrived three days later after overnight camps between Barrow Creek and Ti Tree
Well, and between Wauchope and Tennant Creek. On the monthly run to Birdum, the passengers spent the third
night at Banka Banka and the fourth at the pub at Newcastle Waters. Passengers stayed overnight in the pub at
Birdum before joining the train for Darwin the following morning. The train journey involved an overnight stop at
Pine Creek. Johannsen shared the driving duties on both the mail run and the passenger service with his father.
On 29 June 1940, the Johannsens relinquished the mail run and L M Owen acquired it. About a year later,
the Army took over the conveyance of all mails north of Alice Springs.
Kurt Johannsen’s mechanical talent led him to design a wood-burning device that produced gas to power
engines and act as a substitute for conventional fuels. But by the time he had patented it and got other parties
interested, the war had turned the corner and his project lapsed. He continued to drive his Studebaker, which was
fitted with the wood burner for some years afterward.
During the war, after a brief stint with the Civil Construction Corps, he was able to convince the manpower
authorities that he would be of more value to the nation’s war effort if he could mine a special type of mica (used in
aircraft plugs) which he had discovered some time previously whilst gold mining at Winnecke.