Gannawarra Shire Heritage Study Stage One Volume One Thematic ...

asis with each of the beneficiaries taking out shares. The scheme operated for some eleven years. 88 Part of the
delivery pipe from this system is held by the Kerang Museum.
The progress of irrigation was evident. The Bendigonian Annual of 1910 described the changes made
possible by the technology of irrigation (see Figure 7) to ‘the outposts of civilisation secluded amid the box
timber and red gums of the Gunbower Creek’ that once comprised Cohuna:
not many years ago…hot summer months were occupied driving thirsty stock to a chain of
waterholes, the residue of a drying creek…Often the broken farmer was forced to leave the barren arid
holding and trek to more hospitable pastures. Today, this is all changed. A thriving township of nearly
three hundred inhabitants stands as a growing monument to the SUCCESS OF IRRIGATION. 89
Irrigated acres in 1909-10 compared with 1912-3 increased at Cohuna from 19,825 acres to 26,884 acres, and
on the Tragowel Plains from 20,000 acres to 38,103 acres. 90
Figure 7. Cohuna headworks Gunbower Island c1910. Photo courtesy Cohuna and District Historical
Society.
88 Heggen, Mystic Park Memories: A History of Mystic Park and District, 25-7.
89 In Gordon, ed., Unlock the Land: A History of the Cohuna District 1875-1975, 62, 66.
90 Laughton, ed., Handbook to Victoria [Compiled for] the British Association for the Advancement of Science Australian
Meeting 1914, 256.
Gannawarra Shire Heritage Study Stage One Volume One Thematic Environmental History
Robyn Ballinger (History in the Making) December 2008
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