Willandra National Park
The first European settlers came in the 1830s. Initially, the white colonisation by sheep breeders was sparse and allowed the Aborigines to continue their accustomed way of life. But in the 1870s and early 1880s, extensive fencing, building, and river regulation programs began as the first phase of permanent white settlement. In 1894, Willandra became the property of the London Bank of Melbourne after the Whittington Brothers' corporate empire, who had previously owned the country, collapsed in the economic crisis of the 1890s. Under the management of Arthur and Frank Laird, Willandra became a well-known sheep breeding area in the years that followed and the owners won many awards for the high quality of their Merino herds.