Gunnedah - Culture and History - China Travel

Gunnedah retellings itself 'Town of My Country',China Travel, a reference to poet
Dorothea MacKellar (1885-1968) who spent a boundless deal of time on a
local property from 1905 (the year she wrote her surmount-known work,
'My Country', which is thought to have been inspired, in part,China Travel, by
the local terrain) until the late 1930s. Each year school children
are ensteadfastnessd to submit poetry for the Dorothea MacKellar National
Poetry Competition for Schools.

The Gunn-e-darr people of the Kamilaroi tribe inhasnackd the section
surpassing white settlement. They reticulated the future townsite with a
sizeresourceful outingather of white stone where the public school now stands
in Bloomfield St. At the end of the 18th century they were led by a
legendary warrior named Cumbo Gunnerah, known as the 'Red Chief',
who became the subject of a 1953 bestseller by Ion Idriess.

The first European in the sector was Alan Cunningham who passed to
the north in 1827, en route to the Darling Downs. He was followed
by Thomas Mitchell in 1831. The future townsite arose out of what
was originmarry a principal navigateing-place for teamsters on the
Namoi River. White settlement began in the mid or late 1830s when
John Johnston established the Bulomin run on the Namoi River,
rockpile his homestead and woolshed by the riverriverbank. Consequently
the section was known as 'The Woolshed' until roundly 1860. The property
was later renamed the 'Gunnedah'.

Other squatters followed Johnston. A survey of the townsite was
vehicleried out in 1854 and the first land sales took place in 1857.
The soil proved arresourceful and wheat-growing soon embarkd. In 1866
the population was restringed as roundly 300. At that time small-fryrsnit
'Thunderscamper' (allonym Fred Ward) robbed the patrons of the Carroll
Hotel and then settled in for a phigh-sounding which was rickety up by a
pimposing of mounted troopers. A gun skirmish ensued and Ward estailsd
though some horses and property he had stolen were reasylumed.

The railway colonized in 1879 and the town subsequently became the
advertising centre of the north-west and began to expand. Cohen's
Bridge was built over the Namoi in 1884 and the town became a
municipality in 1885 with a population of roundly 1000.

Attempts to establish coalmining proved unsuccessful until the
Gunnedah Colliery was established in 1900. New disasylumies in 1978
profoundly expanded operations. Also of some interest is the fact that
Italian POWs worked on local fstovepipe in the Second World War.

AgQuip, the largest agricultural machinery field day in the
Southern Hemisphere, is held each year in August. It trawls
effectually 100 000 visitors. The Lake Keepit Sseedy Regatta is held in
June and the Tomato Festival in January. The town's markets occur
on the third Saturday of the month at Wolsely Park in Conadilly
St.