[edit]
Pre-colonisation[edit]
Plan of Baiame's Ngunnhu (Brewarrina Aboriginal Fish Traps)
The town is located amid the traditional lands of the Ngemba, Murrawarri, Euahlayi (Yuwaalaraay), Weilwan, and Barranbinya peoples, who have lived on the land for at least 2000 generations. The area has a long Indigenous Australian history and was once a great gathering site for Indigenous people.
The Ngunnhu (Brewarrina Aboriginal Fish Traps) are estimated to be over 40,000 years old.
The name Brewarrina is derived from burru waranha, a Weilwan Weilwan name for a species of acacia, Cassia tree, "Acacia clumps", "a native standing", or "place where wild gooseberry grows".
19th century[edit]
The first British colonists arrived in the district in the early 1840s, with the brothers William and Nelson Lawson (sons of Lieutenant William Lawson) establishing two holdings – one called Walcha and another called Mohanna. Henry Cox (son of William Cox) formed Quantambone, while George Joseph Druitt (son of Major George Druitt) established Brewareena West. These pastoralists were the colonial elite with extensive other landholdings and employed managers to run their properties. For instance, William Lewis and then Cornelius "Con" Bride were the first managers for Quantambone.
In 1859, possibly up to 300 or 400 Aboriginal people were massacred by white settlers in an event known as the Hospital Creek Massacre, recollections of which vary. A memorial was erected by the local Aboriginal Land Council near the site of the massacre.
The town was first known as "Walcha Hut" but this later changed to "Brewarrina".
In 1859 a riverboat called Gemini, skippered by William Randell, reached the town. This opened the possibility of developing the town as a port, and by the early 1860s Brewarrina was recognised as the furthest navigable point on the Darling River. Brewarrina became a port for shipping wool to Adelaide via the Darling and Murray rivers. The town was formally surveyed and laid out in 1861 and proclaimed on 28 April 1863.
The paddle steamer Wandering Jew of 66 tonnes, 22 × 4.4 × 1.5 metres (72¼ x 14½ x 5 feet), was built in 1866 and registered at Sydney. On 15 December 1914, Wandering Jew was lost due to a fire on Barwon River, Brewarrina. "The Wandering Jew represents an earlier maritime era and provides a direct link to the riverine heritage of Brewarrina. Its colourful history and repeated damage by fire is evocative of the dramas associated with riverboat travel".
Brewarrina Court House
The 1870s were a boom time for Brewarrina. The courthouse was built in 1871. The Telegraph reached town in 1873. The Mechanics Institute formed in 1873. The following year two hotels, two stores and the Commercial Bank all opened, and in 1875 The Parish of Brewarrina was formed and public school was opened. All this development was largely due to Cobb and Co, which had a number of coach services passing through the town. There was a service from Byrock, one from Dubbo via Warren and, in 1874, a direct service from Brewarrina to Enngonia, north of Bourke.
The Barwon Bridge opened in 1888, the previous method of crossing the Barwon River was by punt and pontoon. The impetus for Brewarrina bridge, was to capture the New South Wales wool trade from the river paddle steamers and direct it away from Melbourne and Adelaide to Sydney. It is a rare bridge because it, and the lift bridge at North Bourke, are the only surviving examples of the first series of lift bridges in New South Wales. The bridge has been assessed as being of state significance and is listed on the NSW State Heritage Register.
In 1901 the Brewarrina railway line opened to Brewarrina from Byrock, on the Nyngan to Bourke line. The Brewarrina Line closed in 1974, and the wood-framed Brewarrina Station burned to the ground in 1980. The local telephone exchange was established in 1913. The town was surveyed in 1920. Brewarrina was used as a location for the Australian silent film Moora Neya, or The Message of the Spear (1911).
20th century[edit]
In the 1970s, Essie Coffey, Tombo Winters (Thomas "Tombo" Martin Winters, c. 1938–2004), and Steve Gordon co-founded the Brewarrina Aboriginal Movement (which, among other things, successfully campaigned for integration of the open-air cinema in Brewarrina). They also co-founded the Western Aboriginal Legal Service (WALS) in the 1970s.
In January 1974, major floods hit the region, affecting Bourke, Walgett, and Brewarrina. The river was up 31 ft (9.4 m) at Brewarrina by 19 January, and was expected to peak at 35 ft (11 m) by the 25th. There were food shortages, and flooding made it impossible to bring machinery in to help build defences. Coffey, Winters, Gordon, and Phil Eyre were called upon by the local government and State Emergency Service (SES) to mobilise the Aboriginal community to build levees. When Winters realised that the levee would not protect West Brewarrina ("Dodge City"), where most of the Aboriginal people lived, from flooding, he tried to get boats to ferry people from Dodge City to the town. Gordon, co-founder of and now a field officer with WALS, said that civil defence officers had refused to make boats available for the Aboriginal community, providing only one 8-foot (2.4 m) aluminium rowing boat to service the whole community. The SES denied discrimination on racial grounds, saying that two boats had been flown in, but the first priority use was to link the town with its railway station and airport. A third boat coming in on 22 January would service the Aboriginal settlements for two hours each morning and afternoon. After the SES would not guarantee boats for the Dodge residents, Winters pulled the Aboriginal workers off the levee. On 23 January Gordon contacted the newly-established Chinese embassy in Canberra, which led to a national media response. According to Winters, as soon as reporters arrived, many boats started appearing at Dodge City, but they left after the media left.
On 15 August 1987 Brewarrina erupted into a riot, later known as the Brewarrina riot, triggered by the death in police custody of Lloyd James Boney. This came a few days after the announcement by Prime Minister Bob Hawke of a Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, on 10 August 1987. Both the riot and the five-year trials that followed were widely covered by the press, and had continuing legal impact for years afterwards.
Yetta Dhinnakkal Centre, a minimum-security outdoor prison for young Indigenous men that ran an award-winning program, opened in 2000 and closed in 2020. Although often referred to as Brewarrina jail or prison, it was situated about 65 km (40 mi) south at Gongolgon.
