Point Leander Drive
The Wattandee tribe/people had permanent habitations along the Irwin River at Dhungarra/Thugarra (Dongara) Trawberrie (Strawberry), Irwin, Pedowangi (Peterwangy), Gnoolawa, Depo Hill, Coalseam and Minya-Noo (Mingenew). In the summer, Wattandee tribe/people would follow the river to the coast to get relief from the heat to gather seafood and to follow Wattandee’s beliefs and culture of the Wattarn Borungar (Sea Totem People). (Source: Thomas Cameron, Wattandee tribal elder and Winjaroo speaker, 2020).
The river was given its present name by George Grey after his friend Frederick Irwin, Lt Governor of the Swan River Colony. The southern riverbank toward the estuary was the site of the first tillage lease and flour mill, and in the 1870s a footbridge and Walton’s Ford were constructed close to the present bridge.
The river floods occasionally due to cyclones dumping rain inland. The 1872 flood was of a dimension no one could have imagined. Mrs Eliza Moore, wife of a storekeeper, recalled the scene… “anxiously watching the moonlight shining on a vast expanse of river, rushing furiously along, bearing haystacks, alive with wretched fowls, furniture, pigs, and a regular jumble sale all being carried out to sea.”
Irwin River in flood, view from the bridge, 1971 I IRME0624
