Editing Mudgee (section)

===1850 to present===
[[File:Mudgee Railway Station 001.JPG|thumb|[[Mudgee railway station|Mudgee Railway Station]] (1884)]]
[[File:CountryTown0008.jpg|thumb|Lovejoy House]]
[[File:Mudgee market st.jpg|thumb|View of Market Street, looking towards the centre of the town]]

In 1851 the population of Mudgee was 200. This skyrocketed with the discovery of gold by [[Edward Hargraves]] in nearby [[Hargraves, New South Wales|Hargraves]], leading to a [[gold rush]]. While no gold was found in Mudgee itself, the town is central to the goldfields of [[Gulgong, New South Wales|Gulgong]], [[Hill End, New South Wales|Hill End]] and [[Windeyer County, New South Wales|Windeyer]], and grew rapidly as a result.

Mudgee was declared as a municipality in 1860 making it the second oldest municipality west of the [[Great Dividing Range]] with a population of 1500 in 1861. A public school was built in the 1850s together with the present Anglican, Catholic Methodist and Presbyterian churches. A new police station, courthouse, [[Mechanics' Institute]] and a town hall were built in the 1860s. There were four coach factories operating in Mudgee to cater for the demand of the nearby goldfields. The [[National Trust of Australia]] has a number of these buildings registered including the Mudgee Museum (formerly the Colonial Inn),<ref name="ColMuseum">{{cite web|title=Colonial Inn Museum|url=http://www.mudgeemuseum.com/|publisher=Mudgee Historical Society Inc|access-date=15 November 2011}}</ref> the Catholic presbytery, the court house, the police station and the Anglican Church. On 1 June 1861 the [[Electric Telegraph]] system arrived and was opened for messages to be transmitted and received at the Telegraph office.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/AUS-NSW/2002-09/1032849563|title=Western Post June 1861|access-date=14 March 2011|author=Annette Piper|date=1 June 1861|work=Western Post}}</ref>

One gold miner attracted to the Mudgee district was Niels Peter Larsen, who married Louisa Albury in Mudgee in 1866. They were the parents of leading Australian poet [[Henry Lawson]], born in [[Grenfell, New South Wales|Grenfell]] in 1867, and changed their names to Peter and [[Louisa Lawson]]. By the birth of their third child, they moved to a selection at Pipeclay (now [[Eurunderee]]) {{convert|8|km|mi|0|abbr=on}} north of Mudgee.  The site is now a rest stop with a plaque.

Louisa Lawson's vigorous lobbying led to the establishment of the [[slab-and-bark]] Eurunderee Public School in 1876 with Henry Lawson first attending aged nine. He would later write about the school in his poem, ''The Old Bark School''. Lawson later attended [[St. Matthews Central School, Mudgee]] before progressively worsening deafness led to him leaving school at 14. He lived in the region until age 15 and many of his stories were written about the district.

Tiny diamonds were sometimes found and discarded by [[gold panning|gold panners]] when "washing off", but sometime before June 1869 a larger specimen was found on the banks of the [[Cudgegong River]] about {{convert|25|mi|km|abbr=on|order=flip}} from Mudgee and appraised by the jeweller George Crisp, of Queen Street, Melbourne, at 22.2 carat.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article75458117 |title=Intercolonial  |newspaper=[[The Darling Downs Gazette and General Advertiser]] |volume=XII |issue=868 |location=Queensland, Australia |date=7 July 1869 |accessdate=19 June 2022 |page=4 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> Dubbed the "Mudgee diamond", it was the largest found to that date in Australia,<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8859856 |title=Victoria |newspaper=[[The Mercury (Hobart)]] |volume=XIV |issue=2649 |location=Tasmania, Australia |date=29 June 1869 |access-date=19 June 2022 |page=3 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> however commercial quantities were not found<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article162658548 |title=The Bingera Diamond Field |newspaper=[[The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser]] |volume=XVI |issue=694 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=18 October 1873 |access-date=19 June 2022 |page=496 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref> and companies founded to exploit the discoveries were wound up a few years later.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article60870884 |title=Melbourne |newspaper=[[Empire (newspaper)|Empire]] |issue=6026 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=7 April 1871 |access-date=19 June 2022 |page=2 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>

As the gold petered out in the latter half of the 19th century, Mudgee was sustained by both its wool industry and a nascent wine industry founded by a German immigrant, Adam Roth, in the 1850s. The opening of the [[Gwabegar railway line|railway extension]] from [[Rylstone, New South Wales|Rylstone]] to Mudgee occurred on 10 September 1884.<ref name="SMHrailMudgee">{{cite news|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article28368162|title=Extension of the Railway to Mudgee |newspaper=[[The Sydney Morning Herald]]|date=9 September 1884|access-date=15 November 2011|page=5|publisher=National Library of Australia}}</ref><ref name="NSWrail">{{cite web|last=Bozier|first=Rolfe|title=Gwabegar Line|url=http://www.nswrail.net/lines/show.php?name=NSW:gwabegar|work=NSWrail.net|access-date=15 November 2011}}</ref>

The railway boosted the town's agriculture. The extension between Rylstone and Mudgee closed on 2 March 1992.<ref name="NSWrail" /> This same section re-opened eight years later, on 2 September 2000<ref name="NSWrail" /> and closed again in 2007.  The Wallaby Track Drive Tour visits various sites associated with Lawson including the old Eurundee Public School, the Henry Lawson memorial, the Budgee Budgee Inn, Sapling Gully, Golden Gully and the Albury Pub which was owned by Lawson's grandfather.

In 1890 a local newspaper was founded with the title the ''Mudgee Guardian and North-Western Representative''.<ref>[https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/title/648 Mudgee Guardian and North-Western Representative], trove.nla.gov.au. Retrieved 23 November 2019.</ref> Its title changed in 1963 to the ''[[Mudgee Guardian and Gulgong Advertiser]]'' and is currently published twice a week.

Mudgee's [[Glen Willow Regional Sports Stadium]] hosted the 2012 [[City vs Country Origin]] rugby league match with an attendance of 8,621, and the 2017 match with an attendance of 8,322.<ref>{{cite news|last=Chammas|first=Michael|title=Classy Carney closes on Origin spot with sizzling show|url=http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/rugby-league/league-match-report/classy-carney-closes-on-origin-spot-with-sizzling-show-20120422-1xers.html|access-date=29 April 2012|newspaper=[[Brisbane Times]]|date=23 April 2012}}</ref> The [[St. George Dragons]] regularly host home matches there.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.dragons.com.au/news/2018/10/19/dragons-announce-mudgee-fixtures-for-2019/|title = Dragons announce Mudgee fixtures for 2019|date = 19 October 2018}}</ref>

Additionally, in the [[A-League]], the [[Western Sydney]] based [[Western Sydney Wanderers]] have chosen to take their Community Round match to Mudgee's Glen Willow Regional Sports Stadium, as part of their new Regional Strategy,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.wswanderersfc.com.au/news/wanderers-take-community-round-match-mudgee-part-new-regional-strategy|title=Wanderers to take Community match to Mudgee as part of new Regional Strategy|date=11 July 2018}}</ref>

In 2014, the local council found itself involved in a statewide [[corruption]] investigation when officers of the [[Independent Commission Against Corruption (New South Wales)]] raided the local council's offices.<ref>{{Cite news|title=ICAC searches Mid-Western Regional Council offices in Mudgee|url = http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-15/mudgeee-icac/5454644|website = ABC News|date = 15 May 2014|access-date=13 November 2015|last1 = Sa|first1 = 7pm TV News}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Mid-Western Council abandons extraordinary meeting over ICAC inquiry|url=http://www.mudgeeguardian.com.au/story/2298441/mid-western-council-abandons-extraordinary-meeting-over-icac-inquiry|website=MudgeeGuardian.com|date=21 May 2014|access-date=13 November 2015}}</ref>