Gerogery - History

History

Gerogery is on land originally inhabited by the Wiradjuri people. In English, the place name is pronounced Jer-rodge-er-rree; however, in Indigenous language it could have been a repeated "Jerro-Jerro ee". Local understanding is the place is named after the Wiradjuri word for magpies, plentiful in the locality.

The arrival of European settlers meant that trees were extensively cleared and wheat planted, along with sheep and cattle grazed. Gerogery was at the eastern-most extent of nineteenth century German immigration up the Murray River from South Australia.

During the 1860s bushranger Mad Dan Morgan held up Sam Watson at Gerogery East. His hideout, "Morgan's Cave" is located in the Yambla Range, and was used in between holdups around Tumbarumba, Kyeamba, and as a place to take refuge after the alleged killing of several police and a Wagga Wagga judge. (The bushranger was subject of a Dennis Hopper film Mad Dog Morgan.)

Gerogery Post Office opened on 15 April 1875.

The coming of the Sydney Great Southern Railway in 1880 made Gerogery the temporary terminus while building proceeded on to Albury. This railway resulted in moving the centre of population from an original settlement (now Gerogery West) to the railway line. The station master's residence is a beautiful two story house listed by the National Trust. The original station was removed in the 1980s. A one-teacher government school was set up close to the railway line in 1884, as part of the general plan by the New South Wales government to stem the spread of religious-based education that was springing up for the poor of the colony.

Not far from Gerogery on the way to Walla Walla is a peak of rocks which was used as a meeting place and lookout to help break the shearers' strike of 1891.

The Gerogery Commemoration Hall was built in the 1920s. Many concerts and gatherings, including for the monthly Country Women's Association branch, have met here. In the 1930s the area was populous enough to support sporting teams. Gerogery Creek was "straightened" behind Gerogery as part of a work-for-the-dole scheme in the 1930s..

Being 20 miles (32 km) from Albury, and on a stock route, the Gerogery Pub attracted Sunday clientele from Albury, who were able to use a statutory loophole to evade Sunday closing and order an alcoholic drink.

Prosperity brought by the Korean War wool boom saw the expansion of Gerogery township in the 1950s, with a few general stores, but this had contracted to just one combined post office store by the late 1960s. In 1974 the area was included in the area to be developed as part of a proposed greater Albury-Wodonga region, proposed by the Whitlam Government as part of its national decentralisation program, but these plans were dismantled by Prime Minister Gough Whitlam's successor, Malcolm Fraser. By the end of the twentieth century increased use of the car meant that Gerogery had become a dormitory suburb of Albury.

In the 1960s Aboriginal stone tools were found a couple of kilometres north-west of the township.