The first European explorer to the Cowra area, George William Evans, entered the Lachlan Valley in 1815, following an Aboriginal track over the Blue Mountains, now the Great Western Highway. He named the area the Oxley Plains after the then surveyor-general. In 1817 he deemed the area “rather unfit for settlement“.

A military depot was established not long after at Soldiers Flat near present-day Billimari. White settlers began moving to the area in 1831.

The township of “Coura Rocks”, on the Lachlan River, had its beginnings in 1844. Around 1847, the township site became known as Cowra, and in 1849, was proclaimed a village.

In the 1850s many gold prospectors passed through headed for gold fields at Lambing Flat (Young) and Grenfell. The first school was established in 1857. The first bridge over the Lachlan River was built in 1870. Gold was discovered at Mount McDonald in the 1880s.

The town infrastructure was progressively developed: the rail head reached Cowra in 1886; the first telephone exchange in 1901, the town water supply in 1909, the gasworks in 1912, and electricity in 1924.

During World War II, Cowra was the site of a prisoner of war (POW) camp. Most of the detainees were captured Japanese and Italian military. Thousands of Italian soldiers were taken prisoner in North Africa and transported to Australia at the request go the British government. From 1941 to 1947 there were 5,000 Italians at Cowra. These proved to be mostly friendly and hard working people – the Fascists were separated out.  A Prisoner Without Guards was introduced where Italians were trained at the Prison Farm and then went to work on farms around NSW to assist with food production.

However, in July 1942, Indonesian political prisoners and families from West Papua were transported as “prisoners-of-war” to the Cowra prison camp, at the behest of Netherlands East Indies government in exile. These Indonesian prisoners, around 1,200, arrived in mid 1942 and were released in December 1943. As they were not prisoners of war their imprisonement by Australia was deemed illegal under the Constitution. The single men were sent to work in Queensland for the war effort and the families were later released in 1944. Indonesia was declared a republic in 1949.

By 1944 there were 1,104 Japanese prisoners interned at Cowra – over crowding was becoming a real issue. On 5 August, an estimated 545 Japanese POWs attempted a mass breakout from the camp. Simultaneously, other Japanese prisoners committed suicide, or were killed by their countrymen, inside the camp. The actions of the POWs in storming machine gun posts, armed only with improvised weapons, showed what Prime Minister John Curtin described as a “suicidal disregard of life“.

During the breakout and subsequent recapture of POWs, four Australian guards and 231 Japanese died, and 108 prisoners were wounded. The dead Japanese were buried in Cowra in the specially created Japanese War Cemetery, initially looked after by locals as a mark of respect. 

The land was ceded to Japan in 1963, thus Cowra has its own little piece of Japan. The Cemetery also holds some of the dead from the World War II air raids on Darwin.

An Avenue of Honour also commemorates those who died in World War I. There is an annual ceremony to commemorate the breakout, involving local school students, council members, local dignitaries and guest Japanese visitors.

This history has forged a special bond between Cowra and Japan.

Today, Cowra, with a population of around 10,000, has become the commercial and administrative centre of a shire where livestock, wool scouring, vegetable growing and processing, vineyards and tourism are the main drivers of the local economy.