Deniliquin


Deniliquin is a town in the western Riverina region of south-western New South Wales, Australia, close to the border with Victoria. It is the largest town in the Edward River Council local government area.
Deniliquin is located at the intersection of the Riverina and Cobb Highway approximately south west of the state capital, Sydney and due north of Melbourne. The town is divided in two parts by the Edward River, an anabranch of the Murray River, with the main business district located on the south bank.
The town services a productive agricultural district with prominent dairy, rice, wool and timber industries. At the, the urban population of Deniliquin was.

Prehistory

Deniliquin is the namesake of the deeply buried Deniliquin multiple-ring structure, which is suggested to be at the core of a 320 mile diameter impact structure formed by a meteor strike over 400 million years ago, possibly responsible for the Late Ordovician mass extinction.

History

Prior to European colonisation, the Indigenous Australian traditional owners of the Deniliquin area are the Barababaraba people.
In 1843, the entrepreneur and speculator Benjamin Boyd acquired land in the vicinity of present-day Deniliquin. The location was then known by colonists as The Sandhills. Although there are several origin stories for the name Deniliquin, the most common suggests Boyd named it after 'Denilakoon', a local Indigenous Elder, famed for his wrestling prowess. An inn and a punt were established on the site between 1845 and 1847; the town site was surveyed in 1848, and gazetted in 1850. The original Native Police force of Frederick Walker was organised at Deniliquin in 1848. The Deniliquin Post Office opened on 1 January 1850.
In 1853, William John Wills of the Burke and Wills expedition worked as a shepherd at the Royal Bank sheep station near Deniliquin.
As Deniliquin was established on the convergence of major stock routes between the colonies of Queensland, New South Wales and the Victorian gold rush centres of Victoria, it soon became an important river crossing and the first bridge was built over the Edward River in 1861. The Deniliquin and Moama Railway Company built a private railway in 1879 to connect with Moama, across the Murray River from the busy river port of Echuca, connected by rail to Melbourne.
Wool growing quickly became a major industry and the area around Deniliquin was home to several Merino studs. In 1861, George Hall Peppin and his two sons, experienced English sheep breeders, established a Merino stud at Wanganella station, north of Deniliquin. There, the brothers developed the Peppin Merino, able to thrive in drier inland regions. Today, as many as 70 per cent of Merinos in Australia are said to be directly descended from these sheep.
In the 1860s, Deniliquin was the centre of a short-lived campaign by wealthy pastoralists including Peppin, George Desailly, Robert Landale and William Brodribb for secession from New South Wales and the creation of a new Riverina colony. This campaign was supported by David Jones, proprietor of the local newspaper, the Pastoral Times.
A Post Office was opened in Deniliquin on 1 January 1850. The first Telegraph Office was a privately constructed and operated office in concert with Moama. In March 1858, the Victorian Government had extended its telegraph line from Bendigo through Castlemaine to Echuca. The nearest New South Wales telegraph lines to the Echuca-Deniliquin area at that time were at Albury, Gundagai and Bathurst. Hence the pro-active citizens of Echuca and Deniliquin formed the Deniliquin and Echuca Telegraph Company and built and operated their own private line across the border to Echuca and Bendigo through to Melbourne and beyond from 24 March 1859.
Finally the N.S.W. Government took the private company over and created its own offices and telegraph lines. The Government Telegraph Office at Deniliquin opened on 1 August 1861. It merged with the Post Office on 1 January 1870 before separating on 1 August 1875 and then getting back together on 29 June 1901.
On 19 December 1868, Deniliquin was constituted as the Municipality of Deniliquin, and the first municipal election was held on 23 February 1869. In 1993, the enactment of the Local Government Act saw the name of the council changed from the Municipality of Deniliquin to the Deniliquin Council.
Large-scale irrigation schemes came to the Deniliquin area with the establishment of the Deniboota and Denimein Irrigation Districts in 1938 and the Berriquin Irrigation District in 1939, using water diverted from the Murray River at Lake Mulwala through the Mulwala Canal. An ample and reliable water supply led to the development of water-intensive industries such as rice growing.
During the Second World War, RAAF Station Deniliquin was home to No. 7 Service Flying Training School RAAF. It was also a final disbanding site for squadrons returning from active duty against the Japanese in the Pacific. No. 22 Squadron RAAF and No. 30 Squadron RAAF were disbanded here in 1946, and in 1945 and 1946 it was also a base for No. 78 Squadron RAAF before it was finally disbanded in Williamtown.
Also during World War II, Muswellbrook was the location of RAAF No.15 Inland Aircraft Fuel Depot, completed in 1942 and closed on 29 August 1944. Usually consisting of 4 tanks, 31 fuel depots were built across Australia for the storage and supply of aircraft fuel for the RAAF and the US Army Air Forces at a total cost of £900,000.
In April 2006, the Herald Sun reported on its front cover that the Edward River was dry, with an accompanying photograph showing a dry creek. This was later revealed to be erroneous; the photograph was of an unknown channel on a farm within of Deniliquin, while the Edward River was in fact still running. Deniliquin Council and members of the Deniliquin community have since attempted to rectify the damage to local tourism by improving the profile of Deniliquin in various media outlets.

Heritage listings

Deniliquin has a number of heritage-listed sites, including:
According to the, there were 6,431 people in Deniliquin.
Deniliquin is a service centre for the surrounding agricultural region. The region includes both dryland and irrigated areas. The dryland areas support grazing, in particular beef cattle and wool growing. Deniliquin is home to many famous Merino studs and the saltbush plains produce quality medium class wool.
The irrigated areas produce a range of high-yield crops. Rice was a major crop until the recent drought. The largest rice mill in the southern hemisphere is in Deniliquin, producing large packs and bulk rice for export markets. The rice mill closed in December 2007 and will reopen in April 2011.
Deniliquin is also the headquarters of Murray Irrigation Limited, an irrigator owned private company and one of the largest privately owned irrigation supply companies in the world. Murray Irrigation manages the operations of the Berriquin, Deniboota, Denimein and Wakool Irrigation Areas in the Murray Valley. These areas produce 50% of Australia's rice crop, 20% of New South Wales's milk production, 75% of New South Wales's processing tomatoes and 40% of New South Wales's potatoes.
Sawmills in the area process timber harvested from the River red gum forests lining the Edward and Murray floodplains.
As the largest town in the south western Riverina, there is a range of government and commercial services to residents of the town and the surrounding area.

Climate

Deniliquin has a cold semi-arid climate with hot, sunny summers and cool, mostly cloudy winters. The town's highest temperature of was reached on 12 January 1878, and is one of the highest ever recorded in Australia as well as being the southernmost 50 °C reading.
Despite the stretches of extreme heat, Deniliquin is prone to cold fronts in the summer due to its south-western location, making for an extreme variation at times. In contrast, the lowest daytime maximum in summer was on 2 February 2005 at the new airport site. This reading was substantially colder than the previous February low maximum of set in 1951, and colder than even the March low maximum of.

Notable people

Notable people from, or who have lived in, the Deniliquin area include: