Located at 117 Gaskill Street (adjacent to the Age of Fishes Museum), our society and museum was founded in 1967 and has since then been entirely run and operated by volunteers. We collect, preserve, display and document objects assocated with the district's history.
Over the years we have built up what is a unique collection which ranges from a hot air balloon to buttons and pins. Photographs and information on just a fraction of what we hold has been uploaded to our eHive catalogue.
We also record and archive today's events as they will be part of our history in the future. An example of this sort of work is our listing of the derivation of local street names which can be accessed here.
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Join us for an evening of celebration to commemorate the ninetieth anniversary of the writing of Kylie Tennant's prize-winning first novel, 'Tiburon'.
Set in our very own town, this book tells the story of its people and their struggles in the early years of the Great Depression.
Professor Jo-Anne Reid (CSU) will share her insights and passion for this amazing book and the author, Kylie Tennant...
Don't miss this unique opportunity to connect with the Canowindra community (past and present) and celebrate a piece of our history.
What: A talk by Jo-Anne Reid entitled "Kyle Tennant's 'Tiburon' - conversations with History"
Where: The Canowindra Hotel, Cnr Gaskill and Blatchford Streets
When: Thursday, 9h May 2024 at 6.00pm
All are welcome to attend this free event, but please indicate your interest at our registration page.
In 2024 the museum will be open on Monday, Wednesday and Friday between 10.00am and 1.00pm (subject to volunteer availability). The museum can be opened for visitors at other times (with some notice). Admission is free, although a donation is appreciated. Please use this form to contact us to make arrangements.
Click here for Google Map and directions to the museum at 117 Gaskill Street, Canowindra.
Many of our town's population's minds have turned to football training and eagerly anticipating renewing acquaintances with the members of rival teams both on and off the field.
Canowindra has a long and proud history on the football field having been winners of the Monaghan Cup (played under Union rules) three times between 1909 and 1913. When football got going again after World War 1, the town switched to Rugby League in 1920. In 2024 the town has both a senior Rugby League club ("The Tigers") and a re-constituted senior Rugby Union club, ("The Pythons"). There are also strong and active seperate Junior clubs for both codes catering for younger players.
In the early 1970s, the Society was able rescue and preserve most of the weekly issues of the Canowindra Star newspaper starting with some of the earliest issues published in 1900 through to 1969. The newspapers to 1959 were originally microfilmed and then bound in year volumes (by the book binding workshop at Bathurst Gaol - which is how we came by the gallows which is a whole other story). The existence of the microfilms made the task of digitising the newspapers fairly straight forward and this was completed in 2021. The papers from the 1960s were recently scanned and digitised thanks to a grant from Museums and Galleries NSW.
The archive represents a unique social history record over 70 years of life in a country town and surrounding districts in the Central West of New South Wales. The Star faithfully documented deaths, marriages, births, the impact of several wars, politics, social events, the ups and downs of the economy, changes in fashions, sporting triumphs and losses and much more. Most of our newspaper archive is not available on Trove.
The searchable digitised versions have all been uploaded to "the Cloud" and can be accessed by members and researchers on request.
Canowindra Historical Museum volunteers will endeavour to open for visitors on Monday, Wednesday and Friday between 10.00am and 1.00pm. The museum can be opened at other times and days by prior arrangement - click here for our contact page.
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