Currowan

Currowan lies on the traditional lands of the Walbanga people,[5] a group of the Yuin.

There was a planned village or township of the same name. Its site was on the right bank of the Clyde River estuary and the right bank of Currowan Creek, where the two waterways converge.This site of the village of Currowan was fixed in 1844.[6] The site was remote and, at the time, only accessible by water. As a result of the Crown Lands Act of 1884, Currowan was proclaimed a town on 20 March 1885.[7]

After completion of the Clyde Road in 1858, town allotments were put on sale in 1859, in both Nelligen and Currowan.[8] Closer to the river mouth, it was Nelligen, with its new road connection to the Southern Tablelands, that became the port town on the Clyde. Although the Clyde was navigable to Currowan—upstream from Nelligen—and it had a stone wharf, plenty of flat land and a good water supply, the town of Currowan never prospered.[9][10] The absence of a road connection from the Braidwood district to Currowan remained an obstacle to its growth as a port.[11][10][12] The floods of 1860 showed that the town's site was flood-prone.[13]

The town held a race meeting in 1901.[14] However, a visitor in the same year mentions seeing only the school, some farms and a sawmill. It seems the 'town', by then, was only the very smallest of settlements.[15]

Land was reserved in the town for a Public School in 1893.[16] Currowan had a 'provisional school' (Oct 1882 to May 1884), later a public school (May 1884 to May 1888) and finally a 'half-time school' (May 1888 to May 1907, and May 1910 to May 1916). [17] There was also a separate school in the western part of the locality at Currowan Creek. It was a 'house-to-house school' from November 1883 until December 1891. Later, it was a 'half-time school', called Clyde Mountain, from January 1892 until it closed in December 1893.[18][19]

In 1920, a factory was established, by the Austral Starch Company Limited, to extract starch from the burrawong plant (Macrozamia communis). The factory was near the mouth of Currowan Creek.[20][21][22] A tramway running, along Mimosa Street, linked the factory to the town's wharf.[23][7] The venture was unsuccessful and had closed by April 1923.[24][25][26][27]

Currowan became a locality, under the Geographical Names Act of 1966.[28] Little remains of the 'town' of Currowan today. Some of its street names and town allotments still appear on modern-day maps. The old town site is accessible via the River Road from Nelligen,[29]

On the opposite bank of Currowan Creek to the town site,[30] "about 60 acres" of land was set aside, in April 1893, as an Aboriginal reserve.[31] This became the Currowan Creek Aboriginal Reserve, which lasted until 1956.[32][33] It actually was just outside the boundary of the Currowan Parish and locality, and was recorded as 50 acres in size.[30] In June 1910, there were just three huts, with two adults and five children—three of school age—living there. The people living there had employment, at times, cutting sleepers and stripping wattle bark (for tanning), and three acres of land were under cultivation for maize and vegetables.[34]

The locality gave its name to one the disastrous bushfires of the 2019-2020 Australian summer, the Currowan fire. It broke out at Currawan on 26 November 2019 and, over 74 days, it burnt 499,621 hectares (1,234,590 acres), destroyed 312 homes, and damaged another 173.[35][36]