Place:Renmark, South Australia, Australia

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source: Family History Library Catalog

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Renmark is a town in South Australia's rural Riverland area, and is located northeast of Adelaide, on the banks of the River Murray. The Sturt Highway between Adelaide and Sydney runs through the town; Renmark is the last major town encountered in South Australia when driving this route. It is above sea level. At the , Renmark had a population of 4,634.^[1]

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

It has been suggested that the name Renmark refers to a local Aboriginal word meaning "red mud" (the original inhabitants of the area were the Erawirung people). However, the mud at Renmark is not red. Alternatively, it could be derived from the name Bookmark, later Calperum, the station founded by the Chambers brothers, from which was excised for the town and irrigation project. Another possibility is the name of an early settler in the district, William Renny. The first unambiguous use of the name (as "Renmark Flat") in newspapers was in October 1888.

Captain Charles Sturt was the first European to pass through the area in January 1830, as he navigated the length of the Murray River from the Great Dividing Range, eventually reaching Lake Alexandrina.

A settlement began to grow in 1887, when the Renmark Irrigation Settlement was established by George and William Chaffey, who created a system of open drains using water from the Murray River, (called Renmark Irrigation Trust) to allow orchards to be planted in the area. By pumping water onto the hot red sand they transformed it into a fruit growing area similar to California. The Chaffey brothers' business collapsed in 1893, and the Renmark Irrigation Trust was created to manage the irrigation scheme.^[2]

Renmark was proclaimed a town in 1904 and a municipality in 1935.^[2]

Bush poet and soldier Breaker Morant worked locally, at J. F. Cudmore's Paringa Station in the 1890s, before serving in the Boer War.

The Renmark Hotel was the first community-owned hotel in the British Empire and became the town's major landmark.

Renmark was connected to Adelaide by rail on 31 January 1927, when the railway line across the bridge to Paringa was opened. It was later extended west as far as Barmera, and known as the Barmera railway line, but then closed in 1983 then the last scheduled train to cross the bridge was on 31 December 1990.

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