Barmera, South Australia

Service town for the local fruit growing area, situated on Lake Bonney.
Location: 221 km north east of Adelaide; 29 metres above sea level.
Origin of name: the name is of Aboriginal origin but its exact meaning is the subject of conjecture. Some sources claim it is as meaning or identifying a place of water, some believe it refers to its original people, they being 'land dwellers'. Other sources say that it is derived from Barmeedjie, the name of an Aboriginal tribal group that lived on the northern banks of the Murray River before European settlement.
Brief history: The first Europeans to occupy land here were Joseph Hawdon and Charles Bonney who, in 1836, drove cattle along the banks of the river here and camped near the lake named after Bonney. In 1867, a number of smaller squatters runs were incorporated into one large run, named Cobdogla, run by John Chambers. The first settlement in the area grew up around the Overland Corner Hotel (built 1859) that became a staging post on an overland stock route from Adelaide to cattle country to the north east. In 1911, surveys were first made with a view to irrigating the area between Cobdogla and Berri. The town was established in 1921 when an irrigation scheme was implemented for returned World war I soldiers who had been promised irrigated farmland. The railway arrived in 1928. During World War II a prisoner of war internment camp operated at Loveday, 6 km south west.
Natural features: Murray River; Lake Bonney; Moorook Loch Luna Game Reserve (Watchels Lagoon)
Built features: Cobdogla Irrigation Museum; Country Music Hall of Fame; Donald Campbell Obelisk (records the fact that the famous Englishman Donald Campbell attempted to break the world water speed record on Lake Bonney in November 1964); remnants of an old copper mine; flood levy bank; wineries; pumping plants at Cobdogla and Loveday; River Lock No. 3.
Heritage features: Napper's Old Accommodation Hotel/House ruins, Chambers Creek (1863); Overland Corner Hotel (1859); Humphrey's Pumps, Cobdogla.