Due to the lack of title for the land, in 1848, storekeeper Jean Emile Serisier organised a petition asking for a land sale of town allotments. The plan was presented to the colony's surveyor general in May 1849 by surveyor G. Boyle White. The settlement was gazetted as a village in November 1849 with the first land sales taking place in 1850. Population growth was slow until the Victorian gold rush of the 1860s brought an increase in north–south trade. The first bank was opened in 1867. Steady population growth caused the town to be proclaimed a municipality in 1872, when its population was 850. The railway extension of the main western railway from Wellington to Dubbo was formally opened on 1 February 1881. By 1897, Dubbo had a general store, Carrier Arms, a slab courthouse, a gaol, and a police hut. The final section of the Molong to Dubbo railway opened in late May 1925.