Paruna Council Offices- for Browne's Well.

This small town is in the Hundred of Kekwick, declared in 1912. During the pastoral era these lands were leased by John Whyte amongst others. He had these so called “Wastelands” as part of his River Murray Thurk station. Whilst Whyte leased this area an employee of his John Brown put down a well near what became the town of Paruna. It is still known as Brown’s Well. The government resumed these leasehold lands in 1891. In 1909 the government passed the Tailem Bend to Brown’s Well Railway Act. The railway line opened to Paruna in May 1913 and the town of Paruna was gazetted in 1914. (The railway line was soon extended on to Meribah and on to Paringa near Renmark.) The government authorised more bores to be sunk in the Hundred of Kekwick and the settlers began to arrive to clear the Mallee and start wheat farming. Paruna is an Aboriginal word meaning “stopping place.” The early settlers stopped for many years but by World War Two many had left and the remaining farms had become much larger. In the early 1920s when Paruna was booming quite a few local farmers took on “Barwell Boys”, youths sent out from England without any family, to train as farmers. They served a three year apprenticeship with a local farmer before they could leave to work elsewhere. This ‘indentured” labour helped get the Mallee cleared and the first crops sown and reaped during the 1920s when most farmers flocked to the district. The boys also replaced the farming soldiers killed during World War One. The scheme operated from 1922 for teenage boys and was established by SA Premier of the day Sir Henry Barwell. It ran until 1927 and some 1,440 boys came to SA under that scheme. Some were ill treated and suicide was not uncommon among the lads, even in Paruna.