Cowra
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 A view of downtown Cowra, 2005 |
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Cowra is a small town in central western New South Wales , Australia and is located on the Lachlan River . It is located about 330 km west of Sydney and 200 km north of the Australian capital Canberra and has a population of 8,225 (2016). It is called the City of World Friendship (Center of World Friendship). This is also due to the fact that the population consists of more than 50 nations.
The original name of Cowra was Coura Rocks , probably the name of an early cow trough that existed at this point. It was near a ford where the Lachlan River could be safely crossed. The mean temperature averages 30.8 ° C in summer (January) and 3.6 ° C in winter (July).
Cowra is the capital and administrative seat of the Cowra Shire administrative region .
history
The Cowra area was originally settled by the Wiradjuris , an Aboriginal tribe . The first white explorers , led by George William Evans , explored the area from 1815 and finally classified it as unsettable for whites in 1817. Nevertheless, a military depot was set up there shortly afterwards. The first settlers to the area came from Bathurst in 1831 . After 1835 the white settlement activities increased, so that in 1840 Coura Rocks could be declared a settlement. From 1847 onwards people spoke of Cowra, the current name of the city. In 1849 Cowra achieved the status of a town. In the 1850s, many prospectors came through the village on their way to prospective prospecting areas. In 1857 the first school was opened and from 1870 there was the first permanent bridge over the Lachlan River. The terminus of the Sydney railway line reached Cowra in 1886. A short time later, in 1888, the village was granted local self-government. From 1901 there was a separate telephone exchange. In 1909 the water supply , in 1912 the gas supply and from 1924 the electricity supply of the place was established. Both the town of Cowra and the entire surrounding district benefited from the construction of the Wyangala Dam or the existence of a military training camp and later from a prisoner of war camp from the late 1920s .
POW camp
During the Second World War , Cowra was the location of an Australian prisoner-of-war camp. Most of the prisoners were mostly Japanese but also Italian military personnel.
On August 5, 1944, at least 545 Japanese took part in a mass escape from the camp. At the same time, other Japanese prisoners who remained inside the camp committed suicide or were executed by their comrades. Those who had escaped stormed machine-gun nests that were nearby with their improvised weapons without a chance . The then Australian Prime Minister John Curtin commented on this practice as " suicidal disregard of life ". Four Australian security guards and 231 Japanese were killed in the outbreak and subsequent recapture. Another 108 Japanese were wounded. This event is believed to be one of the largest prisoner-of-war escapes in world history.
The present Japanese garden in Cowra, designed by Ken Nakajama in the style of the Edo period , was opened in 1979 and serves to commemorate the prisoner escape of 1944. In 1992 one of the world peace bells was erected there.
Attractions
- Cowra Japanese Garden and Cultural Center (Japanese Garden)
- Japanese & Australian War Cemeteries ( cemetery )
- Australia's World Peace Bell (Bell of Peace)
- Cowra Rose Garden (rose garden)
- Cowra Art Gallery
- Cowra Fun Museum
- Lachlan Valley Railway
sons and daughters of the town
- Ellie Carpenter (* 2000), soccer player
- Isabel Coe (1951–2012), Elder of the Wiradjuri
- Paul Coe (* 1949), Aboriginal Wiradjuri, political activist and lawyer
- Murray Cook (* 1960), musician and member of The Wiggles
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Australian Bureau of Statistics : Cowra ( English ) In: 2016 Census QuickStats . June 27, 2017. Retrieved January 26, 2020.