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The history of the Hume Weir

17 February 2022

The Hume Weir (also known as the Hume Dam in the Murray Darling Basin) was the second largest dam in the world when it opened in 1936, and remains a key part of eastern Australia's water management infrastructure today.

At the time it was the biggest irrigation project in the southern hemisphere, with construction lasting 17 years, and is considered one of the great Australian engineering feats between the world wars.

In today's video we revisit this historic construction, and the people who built it, through imagery from the State Library and Albury City collections.

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