WILMINGTON
Wilmington is the first of a number of
towns when heading eastwards to Broken Hill. Wilmington is a town that
has most essential services and also clearly a great sense of
community.
The town was officially named Wilmington by
Governor Musgrave in 1876. No one is quite sure where he got the name
but it is assumed that it was taken from either Wilmington in Delaware
or Wilmington in North Carolina, in the United States. Why he chose
this name is not certain although it is known that Musgrave's wife was
American.
  
The first European settlers into the region arrived
in the 1850s. They were impressed with the richness of the region (it
was obviously during a time of good rainfall) and the prettiness of
the setting and decided to name the district Beautiful Valley.
Wilmington has a highly original main street where
there is no footpath as such but there are trees between the road and
the buildings creating a kind of natural division between the road and
the footpath. The churches in Wilmington are century old structures. 
The first sign of a township in the district
occurred in 1860-61 when Robert Blinman built an inn at the foot of
Horrocks Pass which he named the Roundwood Hotel. By 1864 the Cobb &
Co coach through the area stopped at the hotel. A few years later the
Globe Hotel
was built nearby. It is now known as the Wilmington Hotel and it is
still possible to see the old coaching stables at the back of the
building.
The Wilmington War Memorial is represented by the
Memorial Hall.
Today Wilmington is a sleepy little town with a
population of only a couple of hundred people. It does have an
excellent little museum with what looks like a Jindivik rocket
outside.
For the rest: it looks like it hasn't changed since the 1950s. It is
truly a town which has stood still.
Diary notes
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