Editing Echuca (section)

==History==

===Origins===

The riverine plains of the Goulburn Broken catchment are the traditional lands of the Yorta Yorta nation.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.gbcma.vic.gov.au/our-region/traditionalowners/yortayorta | title=Yorta Yorta Nation |website=Goulburn Broken CMA |access-date=23 October 2022 }}</ref> Their population before European contact is estimated to have been approximately 2400. The Yorta Yorta were dispossessed of their traditional lands and left to eke out an existence on the edges of European settlements as remnant tribal groups.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/long-history-behind-yorta-yorta-land-claim |title=Long history behind Yorta Yorta land claim  |first=Wendy |last=Robertson |date=8 September 1993|website=Green Left |access-date=23 October 2022}}</ref>

Present-day Echuca was founded by one of the most enterprising figures of the early colonial period, an ex-convict named [[Henry Hopwood]]. In 1850 he purchased a small punt to ferry people and goods across the Murray River near the Campaspe junction. The small settlement known as Hopwood's Ferry grew to become the town of Echuca. The Hopwood's Punt Post Office opened around 1854 and was renamed Echuca Post Office on 1 January 1855.<ref name="a">{{cite web |website=Echuca Lions Club |title=Our Town's Heritage |url=https://echuca.vic.lions.org.au/ |access-date=23 October 2022}}</ref>
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===Australia's inland port===
By the 1870s, Echuca had risen to prominence as Australia's largest inland port.{{citation needed|date=February 2023}} Being the point of shortest distance between the Murray River and the major city of Melbourne, Echuca was both a key river port and railway junction. [[Paddle steamer]]s would arrive at the 332-metre long [[redgum]] [[Echuca Wharf]], were unloaded by hydraulic crane, and the goods then transported by rail to Melbourne.{{citation needed|date=February 2023}} [[Wool]], [[wheat]], other grains, livestock, and timber were the most common commodities transported to Echuca. The wharf has been listed as a Heritage Place on the [[Australian National Heritage List]].

This industrial boom led to a rapidly expanding population, from 26 inhabitants in 1854 to 4789 during the peak year of 1871. More than 80 [[Australian pubs|pubs]]/hotels serviced the needs of the town, but it is rumoured that many more [[sly-grog shop]]s, wine shanties, and beer houses, circumventing licensing laws existed in the area. An iron bridge was constructed over the Murray River in 1878 by the NSW Railways Department.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.echuca.ws/Architecture-and-Buildings/Echuca-Moama-Bridge.html |title=Hughes Trueman Reinhold 1998, Murray River Crossings Heritage Assessment Report Echuca-Moama Bridge, prepared for the Roads and Traffic Authority NSW |access-date=22 September 2014 |archive-date=29 March 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120329074805/http://www.echuca.ws/Architecture-and-Buildings/Echuca-Moama-Bridge.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>

===Decline===
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The expansion of the railways from Melbourne to most parts of Victoria, as well as improvements to roads and fickle river conditions all combined to lessen Echuca's importance, and by the 1890s the paddle steamer fleet was in decline. An economic [[Recession|depression]] and the collapse of several banks virtually ended Echuca's role as a major economic centre, and its population began to disperse.