Port Lincoln is in an area that was visited by the earliest explorers of the Southern Ocean that remained uncharted until Flinders sailed into the bay on his circumnavigation of Australia. He named Boston Bay after a town in his home county of Lincolnshire and Port Lincoln after the county town. During colonisation a strong faction urged that the capital should be established at Port Lincoln. They were defeated by the shortage of fresh water supplies, but Boston Bay proved the ideal entry port for settlers on the Eyre Pensinsula. The township began to thrive as a settlers’ base and later as an outlet for produce. The area’s history has been preserved in many surviving buildings, each of which has a story linked to the early days of settlement