The need for a township had arisen from large numbers of cattle being driven from New South Wales to the Victorian goldfields, crossing at Echuca. There was also need for a site for police, because of outbreaks of lawlessness.
The township was surveyed in and Echuca's first land sales occurred in Over the next 14 years Hopwood was influential in developing Echuca. He enlarged his inn, established a butchery and built an iron bridge comprised of ten sections across the Murray River He later built and operated a toll bridge over the Campaspe River. Echuca became a busy trans-shipment centre for food and goods for the goldfields, and for carrying wool downstream by Murray River boats.
A school was opened in In a second sale of town lots occurred, and sales were good, in anticipation of the completion of the railway line from Melbourne via Bendigo. The completion of the railway coincided with the formation of the Echuca Road Board , extending eastwards to Yarrawonga, the Echuca borough 3 January , the opening of Wesleyan, Catholic, Anglican and Presbyterian churches and the provision of a town water supply By the end of the decade pastoral runs were giving way to farm selections, which produced cereals, fruit and dairy goods.
Red gum timber cutting resulted in railway sleeper and mining-prop exports from Echuca. Between and the borough's population grew nearly threefold to , a figure not to be regained until about By the s Echuca's prosperity suffered some setbacks: sawmills in north-eastern Victoria cut into Echuca's trade, soil exhaustion lowered wheat crops, and extension of other railway lines to the Murray River from Melbourne and inland from Sydney eroded Echuca's freight throughput.
Echuca's three flour mills were bypassed. The river-port traffic was uneven during the s and halved during the next decade. The town had numerous institutions dating from earlier years — grammar and convent girls' schools, a hospital and gentlemen's and working men's clubs. Technical and high schools were opened in and Irrigation works slowly approached Echuca, and local ones drawing water from the Campaspe River grew fruit and vegetable crops.
A butter factory and a cooperative butter factory slightly diversified local industry, but it was not until the s that the Torrumbarry Weir on the Murray River and the western channel of the Waranga Basin reservoir brought concentrated irrigation to the district.
Sawmills revived in the s, and more irrigation from the Mulwala and Wakool schemes converted wheat lands to dairying and sheep fattening. Stock saleyards in Echuca were expanded in the s. It consists of a mix of contemporary shop fronts and historic buildings such as the former post office with its distinctive clock tower built in , several banks and churches.
A more tourist-based commercial precinct lies along High Street. South of Heygarth Street, this wide boulevard is lined with motels, churches, a cinema and supermarket. North of Heygarth Street, it features many historic buildings with a range of hotels, eateries and speciality shops.
Echuca's warm climate and its location along the Murray River, lined with parks and native forests, makes it a popular destination for visitors, with swimming, boating and fishing being popular activities. The river is home to a constant stream of houseboats, providing an alternative type of accommodation for holiday makers. Abandoned steamboats and barges, tall red gum wharfs, small towns that show evidence of once having been much larger, old station homesteads that face the river, all these are constant reminders to the river traveller of the days when hundreds of steamers raced along the Murray, opening up large areas in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.
For many settlers they were the only source of supply and contact with the outside world. The Paddlesteamer days back in to were a boom time for Echuca.
Echuca was founded by one of the most enterprising characters of the early colonial days, an ex-convict named Henry Hopwood. In he bought a small punt, which operated across the Murray river near the Campaspe Junction. Hopwood worked to establish a town, which eventually had a major influence on the development of the great inland river system. When he died in he left a thriving town where nothing had existed 16 years earlier, when he built his first slab Inn. After Sturt first discovered and named the Murray in , it was over twenty years before the first two steam boats made their way upstream.
The few settlers along the way greated both with much enthusiasm and hospitality. Randell took the Mary Ann on up to Moama, while Cadell after travelling a short distance upstream, turned back for Goolwa. When the rail link was established with Melbourne in , Echuca, being the closest point on the The Murray to Melbourne, grew rapidly.
Paddlesteamers traded along the Murray Darling River System, bringing wool from isolated stations in outback Australia to the railhead at Echuca, for eventual sale and shipping overseas.
During the boon period, products worth a quarter of a million pounds were handled annually.
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