This week Griffith Genealogical and Historical Society look through the eyes of a Bagtown settler.
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In 1911 I was twenty years old and didn’t have a job so when the government advertised jobs! jobs!
I lined up and found myself working out west. Well it really wasn’t that far out west, just this new place called the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area, but for a city boy it was very west.
My job was looking after horses. I was one of the lads who fed and watered them, then put them in the yard overnight.
The water was in a small dam, dug out by the other workers who were making the channels to bring the water to this irrigation area.
There were dozens, no hundreds of workers on the job, many brought their wives and kids with them. They came from all over the world.
The bosses, called the Commission, had a couple of houses near this dam and soon other people built their houses next to the construction camp. The workers lived in tents.
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The camp boss, the resident engineer, was a Mr Cowper so the place became called Cowper’s Camp.
As it was handy to the railway line at Willbriggie, more people turned up. But with not much building material available, many used the used cement bags and nailed them to poles to make their dwellings.
I cut a couple of cypress pine poles, flattened out some kero tins and made a shack. There were no roads, but the people built their houses next to each other and sort of made streets.
It ended up a little village with many of the residences made out of old bags. The locals called it Bagtown.
With all these people, tradesmen soon turned up. A baker, butcher, blacksmith, a hairdresser. The ladies too had a shop; a post office opened in 1912, a school in 1913.
It was officially called West Mirrool, but they found out there was another Mirrool about 60 miles down the track. So at anyrate the place was called after some politician, a Mr Arthur Griffith.
This is a pretty go-ahead place so I reckon I’ll be staying.
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