Sapphires Add To Inverell's Lustre

Newcastle Herald

Friday December 12, 2008

GR

WHEN Scottish immigrant and farmer Alexander Campbell gave Inverell its name he had no idea about the area's hidden natural wealth.

In Gaelic, Inverell means "meeting place of the swans".

In the years since, however, the area has become better known as a meeting place for fossickers and treasure hunters.

Potential wealth is hidden underground. Back in 1875 diamonds were discovered at Copes Creek.

Years later it was sapphires that were drawing attention.

Mining for sapphires began in earnest in 1916.

Today Inverell is also known as Sapphire City as it meets 80 per cent of the world's demand for the deep blue gemstone.

Over the years bauxite, lead, silver and diamonds have also been mined there commercially.

Inverell has grown out of a small settlement on a bend in the Macintyre River in north-eastern NSW.

It's thought that the first whites in the district were probably convicts who had escaped chain gangs in the Hunter Valley.

In 1853 Colin and Rosana Ross established a store near a popular river crossing to cater to early settlers and to teamsters headed north to the Darling Downs.

So successful was the store that Ross soon added a water-driven flour mill and an inn.

Residents petitioned for a town site to be laid out in 1855.

The town's strength has been built on the mixed farming community that it services; that and the popularity of sapphires.

A celebration of the arrival of spring, the Sapphire City Floral Festival lasts a week with a street parade, a ball, fireworks, displays, competitions and other activities.

Inverell Pioneer Village is one of many attractions with a connection to the town's rich past.

Just south of town, the village is a collection of 19th-century homes and buildings presenting the impression of a colonial village.

Among the buildings is a printing office, Paddy's Pub (1874, built of pit-sawn timber and once a Cobb & Co stopover) a miner's hut, the Nullamanna Church (c. 1901), a hall, Goonoowigall school (1887), blacksmith's hut, telephone exchange, farrier's shop, shearing shed, a cottage which houses a collection of gems, and an 1841 homestead with a stringybark roof which serves as a museum housing artefacts of the period 1840-1925.

© 2008 Newcastle Herald

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