The History of Broome's Street Names: "Cable Beach Road"

Cable Beach is named after the telegraph cable that came ashore on the beach from Banjowangie in Java. The original cable laid by the British Eastern Telegraph Company went to Darwin but it was laid on a volcanic seabed and suffered so many breaks, that it was decided to establish another station at Broome as a safety net, when the Darwin link broke.

The submarine cable was finished in 1889 and with it came "Cable House". By 1912 the cable had been transferred to Cottesloe (WA) and Cable House became the Broome Courthouse in 1921 and is still a functioning Courthouse to this day, and the site of the well known Saturday Courhouse Markets.

(Source: "The History of the Street Names of Broome" by Carol Shaw).

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