Lameroo, South Australia

Lameroo is a town in the Murray Mallee region of South Australia. It is on the Mallee Highway and Pinnaroo railway line about 40 km west of the Victorian border, or 210 km east of Adelaide. It is primarily a service town for the surrounding rural areas, growing grain and sheep. At the 2011 census, Lameroo had a population of 847. Lameroo now includes the former settlements of Kulkami, Mulpata, Wirha and Gurrai, which were on the Peebinga railway line, and Wilkawatt, which was between Parrakie and Lameroo on the Pinnaroo railway.The local school, the Lameroo Regional Community School is the school not only for Lameroo youth, but also surrounding towns Geranium, Parrakie and Parilla. The town is home to the Lameroo Hawks Football Club, coached by former Adelaide Crows player Rodney Maynard.HistoryLand in the Murray Mallee region was first taken up on pastoral lease in the late 1850s. For the first twenty years there were several lessees; the area had limited grazing during this time. After a well was dug at Lameroo, then known as Wow Wow Plain, in 1884, settlement on Wow Wow Plain became permanent. The land was surveyed in 1894, and the initial survey of Wow Wow Plain gave each block some natural open land to start cultivating. The town reserve was proclaimed in 1894 and a Government well was excavated.