Henry Lawson Cottage

Leeton Rice Mill

Leeton Art Deco Festival

Roxy Theatre

Art Deco architectural detail

Art Deco Commonwealth Bank building

Iconic water towers designed by Walter Burley Griffin

Leeton is a service and administrative centre to the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area. The town is situated in one of the most productive farming regions in the state, with citrus, rice, grapes and wheat farms found throughout the Leeton Shire.

Where is it?: New South Wales: Central West. Leeton is 579 km from Sydney; 819 km from Adelaide; 457 km from Melbourne; 369 km from Canberra; 129 km from Wagga Wagga.

Events: Leeton agricultural show is held in October; the Leeton Sunrice Country Festival, held every second Easter, features a street parade, carnivals, bands, a family day, sports, and other activities. Leeton Art Deco Festival is held annually.

Leeton is a purpose-built town designed by Walter Burley Griffin, who also designed Canberra, Australia's Capital. Unlike the majority of Australian inland towns that have developed around a main street, which in turn is usually a highway that passes through the town, Leeton has a unique circular road structure and streetscape. Leeton has distinct commercial, administrative, industrial, residential, educational, health, recreational and cultural areas and remains very organised today. Its unique design (along with nearby Griffith, also designed by Walter Burley Griffin) is still considered a successful, practical method of planning even though Leeton was founded over 90 years ago.

Things To See and Do:

Leeton is without question the Art Deco capital of Australia, having a concentration of Art Deco architecture second to none. Leeton in fact has 21 buildings listed with the Art Deco Society of NSW's Register. This occurred because the town did not develop over an extended period of time like most towns do, but was largely built in the interwar years when Art Deco was the dominant architectural style. One of the bonuses of being a town which was largely built in the interwar years is, in this case at least, a concentration of Art Deco architecture. TheseMost of Leeton's Art Deco buildings are to be found along Kurrajong and Pine Avenues.

Surrounding Area:

Yanco Weir on the Murrumbidgee River is an excellent picnic spot with a fine view of the river. It presents opportunities for swimming, boating, fishing and barbecues. Gogeldrie Weir has picnic/barbecue facilities with fishing and swimming possible downstream.

As part of the biggest wine producing region in NSW, Leeton offers visitors the opportunity to sample a variety of wines with a number of wineries not far from town.

About Leeton

The area where Leeton now stands was originally inhabited by the Wiradjuri peoples, the largest tribe in NSW. Yanco, Leeton's original name, derives from an indigenous word said to mean 'the sound of running water'. Yanko station was established in the 1840s in what was then semi arid scrubland.
The beginnings of a town emerged when the railway first came through the area in 1885, though the town we see today, which is some 6 km from the original town of Yanco, was created as a direct result of the establishment of the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area. Walter Burley Griffin, who designed Canberra (The Competition to Design Canberra) and Griffith, also laid out the streets of Leeton in 1914. Like Canberra, its orderly design is based on four circular precincts radiating out from the town centre. Its orderly design and predominantly Art Deco buildings give the town a unique character and pleasing aspect. A cannery was opened in 1914; the first rice mill commenced operation in 1951. Italian migrants, drawn by the similarity of soil and climate to Italy, contributed greatly to the successful development of local horticulture which had struggled initially. Today Leeton is one of largest fruit and vegetable growing regions in Australia.
Leeton is named after Charles Alfred Lee, the Minister for Public Works when the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Scheme opened.

One of the best known Australian poets and fiction writers of the colonial period, Henry Lawson, spent nearly two years living in Leeton from 1916-17. In 1915 Lawson was invited to Leeton with the offer of two guineas a week and a house in return for articles and poems publicising the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area (MIA). Among the 30 poems and 10 prose sketches that Lawson wrote during his 20-month sojourn in Leeton was “A Letter from Leeton” that was published in a book distributed to Australian soldiers during World War One. This was later credited by a government report as having had an "inestimable value" in attracting settlers to the MIA after the War.
After being temporarily accommodated in a house in Pine Avenue, Henry Lawson moved to Farm 418, Daalbata Road, Leeton. It is now known as the Henry Lawson Cottage.

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