Renmark was a busy steamer town close to the Paringa Bridge

Renmark

Until the 1920s the Renmark riverfront was a busy scene as steamers and barges delivered supplies and loaded fresh an dry produce for shipment to rail terminals at Morgan and Paringa.

River Wrecks

PS Kelvin

In 1936 the Kelvin's boiler was condemned and replaced by a large locomotive boiler. A bulkhead was removed and this weakened the vessel's hull. As a result the Kelvin was broken up in 1938 on the river bank 28 kilometres above Renmark.

PS Milang

The Milang was built for A.H. Landseer in 1878 and worked for some time as a floating store on the Murray. In 1934 the hill an boiler was scrapped approximately 100 metres upstream from Renmark, and the remains abandoned in the willows.

Barge Jessie

The Jessie carted both wool and wood and, for a time, as owned by the SA Farmers Union Cooperative. It was abandoned at Woolnock Bend, above Renmark, in 1935.

Lyrup Village

Lyrup was established in 1894 as part of a scheme to develop self-supporting communities in the upper Murray. Of the eleven settlements established. Lyrup is the only one where a Village Association still exists.

The government provided basic supplied of building materials and farming equipment and transported the settlers and their possessions from Morgan to Lyrup by paddle steamers.

The PS Ellen landed the first group at the Lyrup site early one morning in February and unloaded luggage, good, bedding, furniture, tarpaulins and other supplied onto the riverbank.

It then departed for Renmark, after a rousing cheer from the settlers. Heavy items and equipment, such as iron, timer and ploughs, could not fit aboard the Ellen and were delivered later by the PS Gem.

Paringa Bridge

The Paringa Bridge was built in 1927 for the railway extension over the River Murray to Renmark. It is one of South Australia's significant engineering monuments.

The Paringa Bridge was designed so that one of the six steel spans could be raised to allow the river boats to pass through. It carried a single-track railway and also catered for road traffic with cantlevered roadways on both sides of the central spans.

The Paringa Bridge is a State Heritage Place protected by the Heritage Places Act 1993.

GPS: Zone 54 E 0477027 N 6218836
Panel on the riverfront adjacent to the Charles Sturt Memorial (near the BankSA building)

Interpretive panels are located at:

River Boat Trail | Border Cliffs | Renmark | Berri | Loxton | Waikerie | Morgan | Blanchetown | Mannum
Murray Bridge | Tailem Bend | Wellington | Meningie | Point Malcolm | Milang | Goolwa

Please do not interfere in any way with ship-wrecks and land based heritage site

Published with permission of Government of South Australia
Department for Environment and Heritage