Molong

History

The name Molong comes from the Aboriginal word for 'all rocks'.

William Lee of Kelso is said to have had cattle in the area by 1819. He later held property just north of present Molong, around Larras Lee. In 1826, a military and police outpost was established at Molong, on Governor Darling's orders, as a step in opening up the government stock reserve west of the Macquarie River for settlement. For its first twenty years the settlement was at a site approximately 1.5 km east of the current location. The present village of Molong was officially gazetted in March 1849. In 1845, Copper was discovered at Copper Hill, just north of the town.

The Historical Museum is housed in a former hotel (1856), built by rubble-mason James Mortal, who sold it in 1861 to John Smith of Gamboola. Smith let the building to a series of publicans and it later became the residence and surgery for a series of doctors. The Historical Society acquired it for use as a museum, in 1969, with help from the Molong Shire Council.

In November 2022 many of the town's buildings were damaged in a flood.

Heritage listings

Molong has a number of heritage-listed sites, including:

• Main Western railway: Molong railway station
• 3 km SE of Molong Yuranigh Road: Grave of Yuranigh

Geography

Molong is located on the Mitchell Highway about 300 km west of Sydney and about 30 km from the city of Orange, and an elevation of 529 metres above sea level. At the , Molong had a population of 1,621 people. Charles Sturt visited Molong in 1828. Molong was the site of an early copper mine in Australia, located at Copper Hill just outside Molong.

The railway from Sydney reached Molong in 1886; it was later extended to Parkes. A branch railway to Dubbo was opened in 1925 and closed in 1987.

Climate

Despite Molong's elevation, it still manages to have a humid subtropical climate (Cfa) due to its northern latitude, having warm to hot summers and cool to cold winters with the odd snowfall. While mean temperatures have been recorded since 1907 at the site, extreme temperature records are found only between 1957 and 1975.

Perhaps the most extreme weather event to have affected Molong since European colonisation was the snowfall on 5 July 1900, having fallen to a depth of 1 ft in town, with snow drifts in some areas reported to an exceptional depth of 11 ft. |Jan record high C = 42.3 |Feb record high C = 40.0 |Mar record high C = 37.8 |Apr record high C = 32.8 |May record high C = 27.2 |Jun record high C = 23.3 |Jul record high C = 21.7 |Aug record high C = 25.7 |Sep record high C = 32.8 |Oct record high C = 33.9 |Nov record high C = 37.8 |Dec record high C = 40.3 |Jan record low C = 3.4 |Feb record low C = 2.2 |Mar record low C = 0.6 |Apr record low C = -2.9 |May record low C = -6.7 |Jun record low C = -7.8 |Jul record low C = -8.8 |Aug record low C = -7.2 |Sep record low C = -4.4 |Oct record low C = -4.4 |Nov record low C = -0.6 |Dec record low C = 1.7

|1921|1503 |1933|1531 |1947|1662 |1954|1791 |1961|1655 |1966|1430 |1971|1383 |1976|1504 |1981|1374 |1986|1400 |1991|1563 |1996|1604 |2001|1560 |2006|1569 |2011|1629 |2016|1674 |2021|1621

Education

• Molong Central School
• St Joseph's Catholic Schools

References

References

1. "Molong".
2. (30 March 1849). "MOLONG.". [[New South Wales Government Gazette]].
3. "Molong - Gold Trails". Gold Trails Inc.
4. (14 November 2022). "‘Like an ocean’: Molong devastated by deluge with more NSW towns hit with fresh flooding". The Guardian.
5. {{cite NSW SHR. 5012108. Molong Railway Station and yard group
6. {{cite NSW SHR. 5051559. Grave of Yuranigh
7. {{ Census 2021 AUS
8. "Broken Hill Line". www.nswrail.net.
9. "Molong - Dubbo Line". www.nswrail.net.
10. "5 July 1900 Snowstorm".
11. (16 June 2017). "Snow in Parkes Shire".
12. "Molong (Hill Street)". [[Australian Bureau of Meteorology]].
13. "Statistics by Catalogue Number". Australian Bureau of Statistics.
14. "Search Census data". Australian Bureau of Statistics.