Gnowangerup is a town located south-east of Katanning in the Great Southern region of

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

Etymology

Gnowangerup is named as the place of the

mallee fowl The malleefowl (''Leipoa ocellata'') is a stocky ground-dwelling Australian bird about the size of a domestic chicken (to which it is distantly related). It is notable for the large nesting mounds constructed by the males and lack of parental ca ...

in the Aboriginal

Noongar language Noongar (; also Nyungar ) is an Australian Aboriginal language or dialect continuum, spoken by some members of the Noongar community and others. It is taught actively in Australia, including at schools, universities and through public broadcasti ...

, being derived from nearby Gnowangerup Creek and Spring, both names being first recorded in 1878. The name means "place where the mallee hen (Gnow) nests". The town was first gazetted under the spelling of Ngowangerupp. Local dissatisfaction with this spelling led to it being altered to Gnowangerup in 1913.

History

The traditional owners of the area are the Goreng

Noongar The Noongar (, also spelt Noongah, Nyungar , Nyoongar, Nyoongah, Nyungah, Nyugah, and Yunga ) are Aboriginal Australian peoples who live in the south-west corner of Western Australia, from Geraldton on the west coast to Esperance on the so ...

peoples who lived on the plains in the area for thousands of years prior to the arrival of European settlers. The townsite was first gazetted in 1908. Following a severe

drought A drought is defined as drier than normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, an ...

the town was

flood A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrol ...

ed in 1940 after a torrential downpour. The bridge was covered by water, parts of the railway line, the local tennis courts and pavilion were washed away.

Education

Gnowangerup State School was opened in November 1908 on a site on the northern edge of town. It is now known as Gnowangerup District High School and caters for students from Year 7 to 10.

Facilities

The local Agricultural Hall was opened on 20 July 1910 by Arnold Piesse, MLA for the Katanning electorate. A branch railway from Tambellup was open for service to Gnowangerup on 1 July 1912. It was extended to Ongerup on 6 January 1913. Train services east of Gnowangerup ceased on 13 October 1957. The War Memorial Hall was opened in 1923, the same year that electric light was being installed. The population of the town in the same year was 1,350 people. A United Aborigines Mission,

Gnowangerup Mission The Gnowangerup Mission or Gnowangerup Aboriginal Mission, also known as United Aborigines Mission, Gnowangerup, was a Christian mission located in the town of Gnowangerup in the Great Southern region of Western Australia. The mission was spon ...

, was established on Muir Hill in 1935 on a site to replace the mission run on the Government reserve that ran from 1926 until 1935. The mission ceased operations in 1954 and then reopened as the Agricultural High School for Indigenous Australian boys. In 1972 the Gnowangerup Noongar Centre was established by the New Era Aboriginal Fellowship operating out of a 1913 former bishop's residence that was also the headquarters of the Gnowangerup Noongar Corporation until 1989. The building was placed on the State Heritage Register. in 2012

Industry

The area was being used for cereal cropping and grazing livestock, particularly

sheep Sheep or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are domesticated, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus '' Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to domesticated ...

. The areas around the town were running a flock of around 204,296 sheep in 1917. The town also consists of a small industrial area where there are many different businesses to support the district's farms. The surrounding areas produce

wheat Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...

and other cereal crops. The town is a receival site for

Cooperative Bulk Handling The CBH Group (commonly known as CBH, an acronym for Co-operative Bulk Handling), is a grain growers' cooperative that handles, markets and processes grain from the wheatbelt of Western Australia. History CBH was formed on 5 April 1933, at a ...

Media

The '' Gnowangerup Star'' (1942–2003), also published as the ''Gnowangerup Star and Tambellup Ongerup Gazette'' (1915–1942), was a weekly English language newspaper published in Gnowangerup.

References

{{authority control Towns in Western Australia Great Southern (Western Australia) Grain receival points of Western Australia