The Wheat Industry in Canowindra

For our daily bread we need flour ground from wheat.

Canowindra district has a history of wheat growing dating from the 1870s after closer settlement laws brought farmers into the district. Flourmills were built at Cargo, Cudal, Blemore (now Moorbel) and Cowra in the 1880s for farmers to have wheat ground and bagged for home use and the rest sold to market. As the industry grew, transport was by bullock and horse teams to the nearest railheads at Woodstock, Cowra and Manildra.

The extension of the railway to Canowindra in 1910 caused Canowindra to expand as a centre for the wheat industry. Production flourished due to improvements in harvesting machinery and greater clearing of the land. In 1915, 800,000 bags were received at Canowindra railway station, the third highest amount at any railway station in the state. There were then no silos and bags were stored in the long grain shed awaiting the rail.

Two flourmills were built in Mill Street when the rail came. John Tee had bought the Belmore Mill in 1903 and with his sons, later Tee Bros, built an improved mill at Canowindra in readiness for opening of the railway and the 1910 harvest. The Great Western Mill bought land in 1910 and the mill opened in time for the 1911 harvest. It was a branch of the Great Western Mill at Millthorpe. Flour milling was a big industry in Canowindra until after World War II when milling was centralised in Sydney.

Canowindra grew as an important wheat-receiving centre with the building of a series of Government Grain Elevator silos, firstly a tall concrete Metcalf silo and later bulkheads near the railway. Rail closure, modern transport and increased home consumption mean that little local grain in an average year is now exported.

The Canowindra Historical Museum has a collection of evolving wheat harvesting machinery and a wheel from Tee’s Mill.