Forbes (pop. 6,837) is a town on the Lachlan River in New South Wales, Australia. A mild climate has made the Forbes area one of the state’s most productive farming regions. The area’s wetlands support a variety of native plants and animals. Its natural attractions include Lake Forbes and Gum Swamp. The swamp is named for the river red gum, a kind of eucalyptus tree.
The region’s chief agricultural products are cereal and hay crops, including barley, oats, and wheat. The area also produces such crops as canola, cotton, and fruits and vegetables. Forbes’s livestock markets, where farmers primarily sell sheep and cattle, are an important hub of the region’s economy.
Forbes has many historic buildings that date back to the 1800’s. They include the courthouse and town hall. Another well-known site is Forbes Cemetery. It is the burial place of Ben Hall, one of Australia’s most famous bushrangers (outlaws). Hall, along with Frank Gardiner and other notorious bushrangers, terrorized the region during the 1860’s.
The Wiradjuri people are the traditional inhabitants of the land on which Forbes was built. The Wiradjuri people are one of the largest Aboriginal groups in New South Wales. In 1815, the British surveyor George William Evans explored the region. He named the Lachlan River for Lachlan Macquarie, the governor of New South Wales from 1810 to 1821. John Oxley, the surveyor general of New South Wales, officially documented the Forbes area in 1817.
In its early years of settlement, the land that would become Forbes was used to graze sheep. In 1861, gold was discovered in the area. Thousands of people moved onto the land, and a large mining town quickly sprang up. That same year, the town was named Forbes. After the peak of the gold rush ended in the late 1860’s, Forbes again became a farming community.
In 1926, Forbes was seriously damaged by the Black Sunday bushfires. Other natural disasters in the community’s history include major floods in 1952, 1990, 2013, and 2022. Forbes experiences regular flooding because it is close to the Lachlan River.
