History coverage
Health
AFTER nearly six decades in pathology, long-serving collector at NSW Health Pathology’s Narrabri laboratory Ian Schweitzer is retiring. Mr Schweitzer has spent the past two years as a collector in Narrabri, but his career stretches back to 1967, when he began as the first full-time pathology staff member at Moree Hospital before moving to the [...]
2026 Golden Triangle
THE development of picnic racing across the district during the early part of the 20th century was an important chapter of an incredible era of country racing in the New South Wales north and north-west. There is evidence of sporadic, charity-driven race meetings as far back as the mid-1800s but picnic racing across the black-soil [...]
History
ON a bright, sunny Saturday morning in 1888, Alf Merritt stepped out from the verandah of the Royal Hotel in Warialda and strolled nonchalantly down Hope Street. He peered skyward. It was a beautiful day. Merritt was on his way to Lawson and Campbell’s General Store, just up the road. He was pretty sure Messrs [...]
Heritage NSW
THE call to place a Heritage NSW Blue Plaque in Moree to memorialise the 1965 Freedom Ride edged a step closer at a special meeting in Moree on Thursday. Communities across New South Wales were last year asked which towns and specific locations should be commemorated with a plaque to create a Freedom Ride Blue [...]
Freedom Ride
FLASHBACK FRIDAY: On February 13, 1965, a group of 29 students from the University of Sydney – Student Action for Aborigines – embarked on a 15-day bus journey across New South Wales and southern Queensland, with a purpose to expose the appalling living conditions of Aboriginal people and the systemic racism and discrimination they suffered. [...]
The ‘55 Flood
JOHN and Geoff Matthews figured they could get across. The brothers, who lived on Dover Street in East Moree, cautiously eyed the swollen Mehi River as floodwaters rushed past. The river was rising rapidly. Moree’s main bridge, about 50 yards upstream from the current Dr Geoffrey Hunter Bridge, shuddered and swayed. It was late evening [...]
Incredible Life
BRIAN Barry turned 102 on Friday, yet the former Sydney NRL referee doesn’t think himself as remarkable. He told interviewer, Heidi Douglass, he ‘just kept going’, his long life is luck, and that he talks a lot of rot. But sit with him for even a few minutes and a very different picture emerges: a [...]
Our Community
FLASHBACK FRIDAY: Moree and District Historical Society celebrated Moree Plains Museum’s first birthday on Easter Saturday last year, with locals and visitors spending a glorious autumn morning strolling through the historic facility’s fascinating exhibits and picturesque grounds. The historic Lands Office building on Frome Street was gifted to the society in 2019 when Moree Plains [...]
Local History
THE latest edition of Moree local studies journal, Stories from the Plains, will be launched later today at Moree Community Library, with subscriber copies and hard copies available from tomorrow. The free, quarterly journal, compiled by editor Adam Mitchell, is enriched with local and regional history, with the first edition for 2026 featuring an interview [...]
History
IN the late 1950s, Moree was hit by a horrendous hailstorm that all but flattened the town. In Moree and surrounding villages, hundreds of homes were damaged, many beyond repair and uninhabitable. The district’s wheat crops – midway through harvest – were decimated. Moree’s main shopping precinct was the worst hit. Hail-drifts measuring more than [...]
