Echuca/Moama. Population 22,600.
When captains Cadell of Goolwa and Randell of Gumeracha had a South Australian government sponsored race to reach the Darling River and prove the River Murray was navigable in 1853 they probably did not foresee the huge development of the river boat trade. The River Murray was to be a transportation conduit to the outback and inland areas like the Mississippi River in America. Paddle steamer river boats with shallow drafts were first used in the 1820s along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Paddle steamers were adapted from rear wheel USA vessels to side wheel vessels in Australia. A few centres grew into major river ports- Morgan, Milang, Wentworth and Echuca. But Echuca outstripped them all as it was developed shortly after the Victorian gold rushes and it was the closest point on the River Murray to booming Melbourne. Some say Echuca was built upon the entrepreneurship of one man Henry Hopwood who arrived in the area in 1849. He was an ex-convict with big ideas. He began a ferry service across the Murray and later built a pontoon bridge. A government surveyor laid out a town in 1854 which he named Echuca from a local Aboriginal word meaning “meeting of the waters” as Echuca is at the confluence of the Campaspe, Goulburn and Murray rivers. The Goulburn River was named in 1836 by Major Thomas Mitchell on his explorations. He named it after the Frederick Goulburn who was then Colonial Secretary of NSW and he also named the Campaspe River which rises near Mt Macedon. He was obviously thinking of his classical education when he named the Campaspe. Alexander the Great (356 BC to 323BC) of Greece had a famous artist paint one of his concubines and when the artist fell in love with the beautiful Campaspe, Alexander the Great “gave” Campaspe to the artist. Campaspe in the nude or only partially clothed was a popular painting subject in the early 1800s in Britain. Mitchell named Mount Macedon after an ancient Greek King Phillip II of Macedon (359 BC to 336 BC). Because three major rivers meet in the locality of Echuca lakes large flood plains with billabongs abound. One water coursefrom this area flows north to the Murrumbidgee River and is known as the Edward River. These flood plains along the Murray are now mainly national parks and reserves called the Barmah Lakes and Forests with the first area being declared as such in 1908. The cycle of flood and drought favoured the River Red gums. The major floods of the River Murray were in 1867, 1870 – the biggest highest floods of the white era – 1916, 1931, 1956 and 1975.
The town grew quickly and in 1858 Henry Hopwood built the Bridge Hotel which he claimed was the best outside of Melbourne. The locals referred to him as King Hopwood although he was transported to Van Diemans Land as a convict charged with theft in 1834. He reached this Victorian part of NSW in 1850. At that time he established the first River Murray ferry service followed by a pontoon bridge in 1857. The ferry fees he charged with his monopoly soon made him a rich man. Because of the commercially strategic location the railway reached Echuca from the gold mining centre of Bendigo in 1864 so that Victoria could capture the Riverina trade through Moama on the NSW side of the Murray. Everything favoured Echuca’s development. Until Federation in 1901 all the independent colonies levied port duties on goods coming into or out of their colonies and Echuca was an important customs town. By the 1870s when more than two hundred paddle steamers regularly traversed the rivers here Echuca expanded with a multi-tiered wooden wharf so that steamers could dock regardless of the river level. The first small wharf was built in 1865 with extensions in the 1870s and this wharf eventually reached over one kilometre long when extended in 1884! As business boomed the town grew with 60 licensed hotels by 1876. The river trade not only transported wool from the pastoralists and supplies but it required extensive supplies of wood for fuel for the steamers, labour, ropes and equipment etc. Echuca was the second port of Victoria after Port Melbourne for tonnage handled in the 1870s. It was the largest inland port in Australia and it vied with Morgan as the main port to handle wool bought down the Darling River by paddle steamer. But the town eventually declined as railways which began Echuca’s boom also ended the importance of the river boat trade in Victoria. The boom was over by 1890. The river boat trade persisted into the 1930s but on a much reduced scale. The next boom for Echuca was after World War Two when surrounding land was irrigated for horticulture, viticulture and intensive agriculture.
Henry Hopwood’s Bridge Hotel still stands as does the original Town Hall built in 1868 and designed by architect W.C Vahland from Bendigo. Along the waterfront you can still see the Steam Packet Hotel, the Customs House, the Bond Store (where goods were stored by the government until the duties were paid) and a small part of the great wharf. The fine brick Customs House was built in 1884 with a thin strip of sandstone around the windows and across the brickwork. The Bond Store was also built in red brick with pilasters across the front and a pediment to hide the roof line. The days of ferry services ended anyway with the construction of the mighty iron bridge across the Murray. A bridge between two colonies required both to agree and the conflict that the bridge engendered was really a part of the Australian federation story. Both colonies agreed in 1864 to pay part of the bridge cost but disagreement emerged over tariffs and import/export duties. The agreement was reactivated after the great Murray floods of 1867 and 1870. Work finally started on the iron bridge in 1875. Heavy iron posts from England were carted by rail from Port Melbourne as there were no NSW railways near the river at that time. In April 1877 a disaster occurred when a crane crashed and collapsed iron and stone pillars. Six men were killed. The bridge opened in December 1878 but it only caused mayhem. NSW had not inspected and signed off on the bridge and travellers were charged a fee for using the “free” bridge. Angry mobs assembled near the bridge and protested several times and the Victorian government considered prosecuting rioters. Finally the bridge opened in April 1879 with no official opening ceremony by either government! Once the bridge was open competition between Moama in NSW and Victorian Echuca intensified. The railway from Deniliquin reached Moama in 1876 adding to the inter-colonial trade rivalry. Echuca reached a population of 5,000 by 1878.
Support for Australian federation came especially from the Riverina/Murray districts like Echuca as they were the most effected by trade tariffs between Victoria and NSW. The Riverina was settled as the main NSW grain producing region in the late 19th century but it was much closer to Melbourne than Sydney. Grain was carted across the border at Echuca. NSW was a free trade colony but Victoria was a protectionist colony. Thus towns developed each side of the river at crossing points – Wodonga and Albury; Wahgunyah and Corowa; Echuca and Moama. The railways were pushed up much sooner from Melbourne than from Sydney and grain was transported by rail from Echuca by the mid-1870s. NSW railway lines only reached Riverina towns in the 1890s and even later. So the Echuca district was directly interested in the benefits of federation especially the abolition of tariffs and customs but the other great issue was the control of the Murray River and its waters. In NSW Sir Henry Parkes pushed for federation and the other colonies waited to see if NSW would push ahead with the idea as their approval was always going to be crucial. Parkes began the push for federation in speeches in 1881 and again more seriously in 1889. The first national constitution convention was held in 1891 in Sydney. In the next couple of years the localised Australian Natives Association formed many more branches and became a national movement. Along the River Murray the Border Federation League was formed in Corowa and soon spread to Echuca/Moama and other regional towns. It was at a meeting of the Border Federation League in 1893 that Dr John Quick of Bendigo moved a motion to provide a process to achieve federation. This was something the arguing statesmen and politicians could not achieve. He moved that colonial parliaments should pass enabling legislation to send delegates to a national convention to adopt a constitution. From this point on the federation movement gained great impetus especially with support from the Riverina and river towns like Echuca. The movement culminated in the inauguration of the Commonwealth on January 1st 1901.
Apart from the River Murray providing a smooth navigable surface for transportation the river flats near Echuca led to the development of the major industry of the town- timber milling. River red gum timer was railed from Echuca all over Victoria for its railways. River red gum railway sleepers were transported down the Murray from Echuca to Morgan to build the Kapunda to Morgan railway in 1878. By 1869 one of several the timber mills in Echuca covered six acres. Logs were taken from the Barham forests and the Goulburn River valley and transported downstream to Echuca. But the Murray provided more for the town. The supply of timber made Echuca one of the major paddle steamer building sites along the Murray. Red gums provided wood for the boats and wood for their boilers. A slipway was soon erected in Echuca and the first steamer rolled into the river in 1864 but one earlier boat, without the assistance of a slipway, was constructed in 1858. Echuca had constructed 48 paddle steamers and 54 barges by 1895. Eighteen of the 48 paddle steamers were built between 1874 and 1878. The boat building stopped in the 1920s. Several foundries in the town produced ship bells and other equipment. The river trade led to wool scouring or fellmongering, boiling down works and tanneries. All these hard manual workers required alcohol and Echuca had several major breweries in the 19th century. The growth of the town surrounded by farmers or selectors led to conflict between the big squatter and sheep shearers and other labourers. At Echuca shearers went on strike in 1894 and camped along the river. One camp had 220 men in it by July 1894. They tried to block use of the bridge to Moama and the unloading of trains in Echuca with non-union shearers. In August 1894 trouble flared up. But it was near Pooncarie on the Darling River that a crew of boatmen from Echuca were moored on the banks of the Darling in the PS Rodney with non –union labour for an upstream station. The Rodney was built in Echuca in 1875. The non-unionists on board were thrown overboard and the crew allowed to leave and then the Rodney was set on fire. The news was not appreciated in the workers home town of Echuca. Only half a dozen of the arsonists were arrested, but then acquitted when tried by the Court in Broken Hill. Eventually one was convicted in a second trial in Sydney.
Some Echuca buildings to take note of starting at the entrance to the port of Echuca, Hopwood Place
•The Bridge Hotel built by Henry Hopwood in 1858. Slate roof, round columns supporting the veranda and French doors which were so popular in the mid 1850s. Upper floor added circa 1875. Closed 1916 and became a residence then owned by the City of Echuca since 1970. Now a café.
•Across Hopwood Park is the Shire Hall/ Courthouse. Facade on Dickson St. Red brick and cement rendered quoins. Open ‘lacework” style balustrade along roof line. Triangular pediment above the door. It has simple Doric columns and porticos. Built in 1870. Architect W Vahland.
High Street buildings when turning left into High street.
•589 High St. The Shamrock Hotel. One of the 86 colonial hotels in Echuca! Licensed 1870, as single storey hotel. Upper floor added around 1895 with classical small pediment and spire behind it. Note shamrocks in the wooden Edwardian veranda posts.
•The former Star Hotel. Four sets of French windows in the upper floor. Built 1866-70 as offices for Permewan Wright who were carting agents. Sub leased to shipping agents etc. Now a hotel.
•William McCulloch and Co. Classical symmetry and arched doorway and windows and magnificent fan light above door. McCullochs early saw millers and later boat builders. Built in 1859 as a bond store for alcohol and tobacco. Kept by agents until bond tax paid. Used by McCullochs from 1889.
•Across the road from MCullochs - The Echuca Hotel. Opened in 1858. The current building erected 1873. Symmetry, pilasters, classical rounded windows. Not a typical Australian pub building.
•In Leslie St. visible from High St. Former Customs House. Built in 1884 but earlier customs houses. Good brick work and slate roof. Part for the wharf river front buildings.
•Opposite the Customs House in Leslie St. is the Steampacket Hotel. Claimed they were dedicated to the eradication of thirst! Built in 1864 as a single storey hotel. Rebuilt in the 1870s. Closed in 1900 and became a boarding house. Architect William Vahland. Return to High Street.
•On the right of street at 645 High St. Bank of New South Wales. Erected 1877. Architects Reed & Barnes. Two level loggia with projecting ends and arcaded on lower level. A Greek classical revival style of bank.
•Next on the right is Colonial Bank of Australasia. Built in the classical style in the 1870s. Greek keystones above widows and ground floor doors. Lower windows rounded, upper window rectangular.
•Next on right is Millewa Chambers. Built as a bond store in 1878. Beautifully restored and painted. Highly decorative with three classical urns on the central roof pediment. Arched symmetry & pilasters by doors.
•On left on the corner of Heygarth St. is the combined Echuca Town Hall and Petty Sessions Courthouse. Built in 1869. Architects William Vahland and Robert Getzschmann of Bendigo. High St façade dominated by triangular pediment. Central section flanked by side wings. Used as a Courthouse until 1924. In 1954 became the town library only.
•Turn left here into Heygarth St. The first section contains the Palace Hotel and the American Hotel. The first building opposite the old Courthouse/library is the former London Chartered Bank. Perfect symmetry with triangular pediment above central entrance. Architect Vahland. Built in 1882. Later an English Scottish & Australian Bank.
•Beside it is Dr Crosson’s Private Hospital and residence. Architect was William Vahland. Built 1875 with a cast iron balcony. Return to High St.
•Take next right street into Hare St. with the Palace Hotel on the corner.
•Next on right is the modern Christ Church Anglican Church entrance but behind it is the original church built in 1865. It has a stained glass memorial window to Henry Hopwood. Architect William Vahland.
•Next left is the Catholic Church St Marys. Built in 1875 in red brick with freestone dressings. The tower is unusual with a spire which is almost too narrow, a brick balcony and turrets. Added in 1890.
•Next left is the Post Office with a three storey clock tower built in 1877. Government architects led by William Wardell designed this Italianate style Post office. An asymmetrical façade with a colonnaded loggia. Similar to Post Offices in Maryborough, Castlemaine, Warrnambool, Hamilton etc. Painted rendered brick. Continue along Hare St. which is the main shopping street.
•Two streets along on right is the impressive Presbyterian Church. St Andrews was built in 1901. Architect a local man E Castles. An impressive church with some unusual features – rose window, spire and black and white tiled sections in the gable and turreted tower. Worth the walk. Beyond the church is the Echuca state school no 208. Gothic in style with large windows for lighting. Gables facing street and arched entrance and tower. Built 1874. Some section rebuilt 1890 after a fire. Now return to High Street or the motel.
