Glen Innes

Glen Innes is a parish and town on the Northern Tablelands, in the New England region of New South Wales, Australia.

Glen Innes is a parish and town on the Northern Tablelands, in the New England region of New South Wales, Australia. It is the centre of the Glen Innes Severn Shire Council.The town is located at the intersection of the New England Highway and the Gwydir Highway. At the 2016 census, Glen Innes had a population of 6,155.

The original owners of Glen Innes and surrounding areas are the Ngarabal people.The Ngarabal name of the township of Glen Innes is Gindaaydjin, meaning "plenty of big round stones on clear plains".

The arrival of European settlers saw the significant disruption of the life of Ngarabal people.

Many Ngarabal people continue to live in the Glen Innes area, still practising many aspects of their traditional culture and way of life.In about 1838 Archibald Boyd registered the first run in the Glen Innes district. Two stockmen known as "the Beardies" because of their long beards took Boyd to this area to establish his run. ‘The Beardies’ later introduced other squatters to the best runs in the area to become known as the Land of the Beardies or Beardie Plains.Furracabad Station was suggested by John James Galloway as an alternative to Wellingrove for a new town. However Furracabad Station was sold in the 1840s depression and passed to Major Archibald Clunes Innes, then to the Bank of Australasia, then to John Major, who sold it to Archibald Mosman. The name Glen Innes is believed to be bestowed by Mosman in honour of Innes. Glen Innes was gazetted as a town in 1852 and the first lots were sold in 1854. The post office was established in August 1854 and the court in 1858 when they replaced the Wellingrove offices.In 1866 the population was about 350, with a telegraph station, lands office, police barracks, courthouse, post office and two hotels. There was still no coach service at this time, but in the 1870s a road was constructed to Grafton.

Tin was first discovered at Emmaville in 1872 and Glen Innes became the centre of a mining bonanza during the late 19th century. In 1875, the population had swelled to about 1,500 and the town had a two teacher school, three churches, five hotels, two weekly newspapers, seven stores and a variety of societies and associations. On 19 August 1884 the new Main North railway from Sydney opened. The arrival of the rail service and the expansion of mining contributed a new prosperity in the town, which is reflected in some of the beautiful buildings there.

The centre of the town retains some of its federation buildings and the owners have painted these buildings in the traditional colours. Many of these buildings have been placed on the Register of the National Estate.

The town boasts a railway station that was once part of the Main North Line. Today, the line is closed so the station is not in use and the buildings have been repurposed.

Glen Innes is 1,062 metres AHD with an average annual rainfall of 857 mm. The climate is officially classed as a temperate oceanic climate (Köppen: Cfb). The area has one of Australia's coldest climates outside the Snowy Mountains and Tasmania, with mild to warm summers and cold, windy winters with regular frosts and occasional snowfalls, though many snowfalls do not settle. Glen Innes's highest recorded temperature was 37.0 °C (98.6 °F) on 4 January 2014, and its coldest was -12.8 °C (9.0 °F) on 8 July 2002. Rainfall is heaviest in late spring, owing to the effects of the surrounding mountains, causing uplift which in turn causes frequent, heavy storms during this period. At 6:33AM on 19 July 2019, the town registered a temperature of -12.3 °C (9.9 °F), making it the coldest place in Australia in that year.