| Historical notes: | ABORIGINAL LAND
The traditional owners of Cootamundra are the Wiradjuri, for whom the Murrumbidgee River was a plentiful source of shellfish and fish. Plants, tubers and nuts of the country between the major rivers supplied seasonal food. Larger game such as possums, kangaroos and emus were captured by groups of hunters to make up a varied and nutritious diet. (Heritage Branch, 1996, p132).
The dislocation by European colonists of normal Aboriginal routines of life was increasingly severe from the 1830s and the new diseases took a terrible toll. There were predictable problems over cattle. A series of incidents along the Murrumbidgee near Narrandera c1840 have been called the 'Wiradjuri wars'. The end result was that the Wiradjuri were deprived of their riverine territory and driven to the hills or to local employment on the stations. Men worked as cattlemen, general hands, sheep-shearers and flour grinders, and women as domestic servants and child carers. Ultimately many Wiradjuri people ended up living in the towns established to service those who had supplanted them. By the late nineteenth century few of the surviving Wiradjuri people lived a traditional life. The numerous towns of the area, which became closely settled with irrigation schemes during the twentieth century, contained an increasing Aboriginal population. Today in the region, most Wiradjuri people live in Narrandera and Griffith, with significant numbers in Wagga Wagga, Leeton and Tumut and smaller communities in Junee, Harden, Young and Cootamundra (Heritage Branch, 1996, p132-133).
The name Cootamundra was likely derived from the Wiradjuri word guudhamang for 'turtle', as the town is aroudn a low-lying marshland, which is ideal turtle habitat (Cootamundra Heritage Centre & Visitor Information Centre, 2020, 1).
COLONISATION AND EARLY HISTORY OF COOTAMUNDRA
In 1829 the first British explorer Charles Sturt ventured into the Murrumbidgee Valley. Within 15 years most of the water frontages along the Murrumbidgee were occupied by pastoralists. John Hurley and Patrick Fennell obtained permissions to pasture stock on the Coramundra Run in the 1830s, which by 1849 had grown to 50,000 acres with an estimated grazing capacity of 600 cattle and 3000 sheep (Caskie, 2000, 1; CLHS, 2008). Meat prices soared in the 1850s and the Murrumbidgee stations 'became a vast fattening paddock'.
Cootamundry was surveyed and a plan of the proposed village was drawn up by surveyor P. Adams in 1861 on a site that was originally the horse paddock of John Hurley's station. The first town lots were sold in 1862. Like many other towns in the Riverina, Cootamundra's population increased with the brief gold rush of the 1860s. By 1866, the village had a population of 100, a post office, a police station and two hotels. The succeeding decades saw the triumph of sheep over cattle particularly on the saltbush plains at the western end of the region. The corollary of this pastoral expansion was the clearing of much of the bush, the sinking of wells, the building of dams for stock and the systematic fencing of paddocks. (Heritage Branch, 1996, p133-5; Wikipedia, 'Cootamundra').
The rail network helped in the growth of farming industries. Cootamundra's train station, linking into the main southern railway that links Sydney and Melbourne, opened in 1877. The development of Cootamundra was slow and steady and it was gazetted on May 20, 1884 as a municipality of 3010 acres. The town was finally gazetted as Cootamundra in 1952, changed from the official name of Cootamundry by which it had been known since 1860. The locals had always used the name Cootamundra (CLHS 2008). It became a quiet yet prosperous agricultural community. Today, Cootamundra has a population of around 7500 in the whole shire with a further 2000 in the surrounding district. (CSC, 2009)(Rappoport, 2011, p22-23).
Cootamundra Railway History:
The contract for construction of a single line from Yass Junction to Cootamundra was awarded in 1874 and the line opened in 1877. The line extended to Bethungra (1878), Junee (1878), Bomen (1878), Wagga Wagga (1879), Gerogery (1880), Albury (1881) and the River Murray (1883). Duplication of the line between Wamba and Cootamundra North was completed in 1917, between Cootamundra North to Cootamundra South in 1943, and Cootamundra South to Tanyinna in 1942 (Forsyth, 1989).
On 1 September 1893, the 38 mile branch line from Cootamundra to Temora via Cootamundra West opened for traffic but the station buildings at Cootamundra West were opened nearly twenty years later, on 22 March 1911. (The branch line to Temora was later extended to Lake Cargelligo). Cootamundra West railway station probably closed c1989, around the same time as the closure of Temora station (Scobie, 2000; SRA, 1993).
References:
Forsyth, J.H., Stations and tracks: volume 2: Main Southern Line: Granville Junction to Albury (State Rail Authority of NSW Archives, 1989).
Scobie, D., Heritage impact statement: Cootamundra locomotive inspection pit: revised report: Monday, 26 June 2000 (David Scobie Architects Pty Ltd, 2000).
State Rail Authority of NSW Archives, How and why of station names (State Rail Authority of NSW, 1993).
The town was heavily influenced by the railway due to its location on the Main Southern Line. With two railway stations, a pedestrian overbridge and numerous over- and under-bridges, Cootamundra is a train-spotter's delight (CHC&VIC, 2020, 1).
COOTAMUNDRA EARLY AVIATION HISTORY
The aviation history of Cootamundra began in 1917 when Mr W.J. Stutt landed in a paddock near the Cootamundra Showground in his Curtiss biplane during a flight that established a long-distance record for Australia (Windsor and Richmond Gazette Friday 16 November 1917).
By 1921 the strategic advantage of Cootamundra's location about mid-way between Sydney and Melbourne led to the Australian Government purchasing 75 acres of Quinlan's paddock on the northern edge of the town, making Cootamundra one of NSW's earliest rural aerodromes (Dannecker, 1976, 4-8, quoted in Rappoport, 2011, p37-38). With the implementation of an airmail service between Australia and Britain, Cootamundra was chosen as the southern terminus. The airfield was used as a base for airmail contracts temporarily from 1934 by Butler Air Transport, providing connection to QANTAS services between Brisbane and Darwin. However the company relocated its base to Sydney when the airmail contract was withdrawn in 1938 (Wikipedia "Cootamundra Airport").
WORLD WAR II AND AVIATION IN AUSTRALIA
When Australia entered World War II in September 1939 on the side of Great Britain, the war was far distant in Europe. However Australia soon became part of an international scheme to train pilots and aircrew across the British Empire. Known as the Empire Air Training Scheme (EATS), the scheme was instrumental in up-skilling many of the airmen who fought in Europe, the Middle East and the Mediterranean (Kass, in Robertson & Hindmarsh, Vol.2, 41-4). |