The last year has seen a big harvest, followed by a mouse plague and now a wet winter – an eerie reminder of the events of 1915 and 1916 and of recurring weather patterns.

The 1915 harvest was the biggest since wheat was first widely grown in the Canowindra district in the 1870s. Approximately 800,000 bags were delivered to the railhead – the third highest total for any station in the State. Thousands more went to Canowindra’s Great Western and Tee Brothers flour mills, bringing the total to over one million bags (c 109,000 tonnes).

The arrival of the railway in 1910 had prompted this expansion, as previously Cowra, Woodstock and Manildra were the nearest stations.

To appreciate the scale of this achievement, most farmers used horse teams to sow and harvest their crops. Harvesting was labour intensive. A horse pulling an A-frame lifted the 4-bushel bags for loading onto wagons on the farm or onto stacks at the railway yards. For many farmers it was a three-day round trip to take their wheat to town and then return home.

As so often happens, famine followed a feast, with the rules of supply and demand reducing wheat prices the following year. To make matters worse, the extremely wet winter of 1916 was accompanied by a mouse plague. The bags of wheat stacked in the open at the railway yards were severely damaged.

The concrete silos were not built until 1926.

Credits: Original research and text by Dr Jennifer R Wythes. Last updated 18th February 2022