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The Echuca Story

Abandoned steamboats and barges, tall red gum wharfs, small towns that show evidence of once having been much larger, old station homesteads that face the river, all these are constant reminders to the river traveller of the days when hundreds of steamers raced along the Murray, opening up large areas in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. For many settlers they were the only source of supply and contact with the outside world.

The Paddlesteamer days back in 1865 to 1910 were a boom time for Echuca. From the earliest days of Echuca’s history, growth and development of the area has been intimately linked with the Murray River System.

Echuca was founded by one of the most enterprising characters of the early colonial days, an ex-convict named Henry Hopwood. In 1850 he bought a small punt, which operated across the Murray river near the Campaspe Junction. Originally known as “Hopwood’s Ferry” the name was changed to Echuca as the town grew.

Hopwood worked to establish a town, which eventually had a major influence on the development of the great inland river system. When he died in 1869 he left a thriving town where nothing had existed 16 years earlier, when he built his first slab Inn.

After Sturt first discovered and named the Murray in 1830, it was over twenty years before the first two steam boats made their way upstream. In 1853 the “Mary Ann” skippered by William Randell, and the Lady Augusta under Captain Frances Cadell, ran an unexpected race up-river, each sure of being the first to open up the Murray for traffic. The Lady Augusta passed the Mary Ann arriving at the tiny settlement of Swan Hill only hours before the Mary Ann. The few settlers along the way greated both with much enthusiasm and hospitality. Randell took the Mary Ann on up to Moama, while Cadell after travelling a short distance upstream, turned back for Goolwa.

Echuca’s close proximity to Melbourne and the ambitions of the city’s founder, led to the Port of Echuca becoming the largest inland port in Australia. The riverboat trade was of national importance because it had the effect of opening up inland Australia for settlement and thereby increasing the country’s production of wool.

When the rail link was established with Melbourne in 1864, Echuca, being the closest point on the The Murray to Melbourne, grew rapidly. Paddlesteamers traded along the Murray Darling River System, bringing wool from isolated stations in outback Australia to the railhead at Echuca, for eventual sale and shipping overseas. During the boon period, products worth a quarter of a million pounds were handled annually. For many years Echuca was the main ship building centre for the river transport industry. As the ship building industry grew, so did the demand for red gum as a durable timber for wharf piles, railway sleepers and building materials.

In the 1870’s the district supported a dozen mills cutting in excess of 1000 logs each week. Felling was carried out in the Barmah, Moira and Perricoota Forests surrounding Echuca. Before long the two industries began to rely on each other.

The riverboat days boomed at Echuca – until the great depression of the 1890’s. As the railways were extended in New South Wales and road transport improved, the river trade declined and the old wharf, built in 1865, was defunct by the 1920’s

By an accident of good fortune Echuca’s subsequent growth moved away from the river, leaving the old wharf and the original buildings in decay but intact.

Now the old Port of Echuca has been restored and the century old buildings are open for inspection and business once again. The entire Port Area was declared an historic precinct in 1975.

There are lots of stories to be told about the riverboats and the colourful characters that crewed them. Stories too about the customs strife between Colonies that helped shape the free trade provisions of the Australian Constitution.