It was always about the Mail Steamers.

These ships were the main form of communication the fledgling State of Western Australia had with the outside world. Since 1852 they had been calling at Albany on the South coast with its wonderful natural deep-water port.

"Build us a proper port and we will make Fremantle the mail station for the Colony," Premier Forrest was told by the mail companies.

Forrest was determined to do exactly that which may today seems strange to us. Why would the Premier be so quick to help one area of the vast State to the detriment of another? Forrest's constituency was the Swan River area. If he was to stay in power it was the colonists in this area he had to appease.

At this time shipping in Fremantle was served by the Long Jetty that ran out into the open sea from where Bather's Beach is today. In the early days cargo was offloaded on to this jetty and then taken down Cliff Street to be loaded on to barges that would sail up the river on the sea breeze and back to Fremantle on the easterly. Later it was transported by rail.

The Long Jetty was often a terrible place as described by Captain D.B. Shaw the commanding officer of the sailing ship Saranac.

….entered and fought against putting the vessel alongside jetty to discharge. It is a terrible place. No place to put a vessel. No shelter whatever. All the ships have to lay and discharge at the wharf or pay lighterage…. It is blowing a gale from the SW.…and takes all our time to hold her…. She had done considerable damage to herself…. It is certainly the worst place I or anyone else ever saw. No place to send a ship of this size…. Any man who would come or send a ship a second time is a damned ass.

If a proper port was to be built the question was where? Forrest had already received advice from the famous British marine engineer, Sir John Coode, who suggested that an outer harbour near Rous Head or alternatively one that would stretch south from Arthur's Head could be built. He specifically ruled out building a port in the river mouth as he thought it would continually silt up due to lateral sand drift.

In 1887 Fremantle Chamber of Commerce pushed hard for the latter scheme to be adopted but to know avail as the colony could not raise the half a million pounds which was estimated that such a scheme would cost.

However, in 1891 C. Y. O'Connor, the Colony's new Engineer-in-Chief, arrived. By this time Forrest was promoting another idea - to build an offshore facility at Owen Anchorage south of Fremantle. O'Connor quickly did his research and decided that the Owen Anchorage site had many drawbacks and that contrary to Coode's opinion the best option was an inner harbour built in the mouth of the Swan River.

After much political haggling the parliament finally accepted O'Connor's plan, the Capital was raised in London and late in 1892, preliminary work commenced.

The scheme required the construction of two moles north and south of the harbour entrance, the removal of the bar across the entrance, the dredging of the river mouth and the construction of lateral wharves on the southern side of the harbour so formed.

It was a massive undertaking for such a young colony that was short of both skilled and unskilled labour. The discovery of gold in Kalgoorlie in 1893 added an urgency and a great boost to the works and on the 4th May 1897 the old steamer Sultan with Lady Forrest at the wheel was the first ship to enter the partly built port.

As the port neared completion, Forrest started lobbying the British to use Fremantle as the port of call for the "Mail Packets". The Victorian and New South Wales governments fought for the retention of Albany, fearful that they would lose business that they currently enjoyed to Western Australian. Forrest threatened that unless they agreed Western Australia may stay out of the proposed federation of Australian colonies.

On the 3rd of August 1900, Forrest finally had his way when the Postmaster-General in London informed the Post Master-General in Perth that from that time forward Fremantle would be substituted for Albany as the port of call for the "Mail Packets"

Ten days later on the 13th August 1900 the Orient Company's RMS Ormuz, home ward bound from Sydney to London, was the first British Mail carrier to enter and berth in the new Harbour.

The next year Fremantle surpassed Albany for the first time in total tonnage of ships and the following year in the number of ships when it cleared 410 ships (1.045,170 tons) to Albany's 248 ships (540,910 tons).

Fremantle has never looked back.