Coorow
Coorow
Located 262 km north of Perth on the Midlands Road, Coorow is a typical northern wheatbelt town with a tiny service centre which includes a hotel, a caravan park, a single main street and the inevitable bulk handling grain silos and railway line.
The Coorow area was first settled in 1852 when William and Sara Long arrived in the district. They raised sheep and horses. The horses were shipped to Singapore where they were used by the British forces and the wool was taken by dray to Dongara and Perth.
The name ‘Coorow’ was first used by Surveyor John Forrest who recorded a nearby feature as Coorow Spring in his field book. Predictably no one knows for certain what the word ‘coorow’ means but the popular versions are either a corruption of the Aboriginal word ‘curro’ used to describe a portulaca (a local plant with pink flowers) or a word meaning ‘place of many mists’.
