Murrumburrah, New South Wales

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Murrumburrah is a township in New South Wales, Australia in Harden Shire and forms a twin town with Harden. It is near both the Canberra region of the Australian Capital Territory, and the Riverina Region in the southwest area of NSW. It is on the Burley Griffin Way, the major link from the Riverina to the Hume Highway near Yass, and ultimately Sydney, Canberra and the coast.

The name probably comes from Wiradhuri murrimboola, which can reasonably be translated to "two waterholes".^[1]

[edit] History

Before European settlement the Harden area was inhabited by the Wiradjuri people. Hume and Hovell passed neaby in 1824. In the late 1820s, the 'Murrumburra' was established. Its superintendent, James Kennedy, established an inn on the townsite in the late 1840s. Gold was found in the area in the 1850s.^[2] In mid-1872 a traveller made the following comments about Murrumburrah, "a small township on the road to Lambing Flat":

Murrumburrah has two churches, a school, three hotels, the same number of stores, and a good steam flour mill. The Roman Catholic Church is a fine stone building on a hill above the town, and looks very picturesque; the Wesleyan Chapel is a small wooden building. The principal hotels are Mr. Murphy’s and Mr. Dillon’s. The former owns the flour mill, a good brick building, three stories high. It may be mentioned that a good deal of wheat is grown in the district.^[3]

A railway station was opened one km east of Murrumburrah on the Main Southern line in 1877 as Murrumburrah Station, but changed its name to Harden Station, the year after the opening of a new station in Murrumburrah in 1879.^[4] Harden has remained as the main station and, as a result, became the main town.

[edit] References

Coordinates: 34°33′S, 148°21′E