Ferguson Tractor Monument
Highlights
- Explore the historic TEA20 Fergie tractor, a symbol of resilience that saved Wentworth during the 1956 floods.
- Stand at the monument on Adelaide Street, where the cairn marks the floodwaters' height, showcasing local tenacity.
- Hear the echoes of volunteers as you imagine the roar of Fergies fortifying levee banks against rising waters.
- Visit Wentworth's roundabout to appreciate a tribute to the community's fight against nature's fury in 1959.
The ‘little grey’ TEA20 Fergie tractor wrote itself into local history books through the integral part it played in saving Wentworth from the 1956 floods.
Flood waters raced towards Wentworth via both the Darling and Murray Rivers, resulting in a whole third of Wentworth going underwater. Wentworth became an island in an inland sea.
The tenacious will of the Wentworth people saw them stay and fight to save their town from rack and ruin when all authorities were urging them to evacuate.
During the floods, the roar of the little Fergies could be heard 24 hours a day as volunteers patched and built crumbling and new levee banks to fortify Wentworth from the rising waters.
An earlier monument to the town saving Fergies was erected in the roundabout of Adelaide and Adams Streets in Wentworth in 1959 and still remains there to this day. The Cairn of stones where the monument sits is set at the height which water would have inundated the town if the clay levee banks had not been constructed.
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