McMillans

McMillans is a rural district in the Torrumbarry irrigation area, 6 km south-west of Cohuna. About 2 km westwards is Mead. Both are mainly dairying areas.

A school, named Barr Creek, was opened at McMillans in 1877, a time when farm selections became available in the Cohuna district. In 1910 the school was renamed McMillans, the origin of which is not known. Not so is the case of the Mead school (1912), named after Elwood Mead, the American engineer who was the first chair of the State Rivers and Water Supply Commission from 1907 until 1915. The commission superseded local irrigation bodies and introduced farm irrigation throughout the Cohuna district. Closer-settlement farms quickly followed.

Whilst McMillans' census populations have exceeded Mead's, most community facilities have been at Mead: a mechanics' institute/hall, a public hall at the school and a Congregational church (1883).

The McMillans school was closed in 1948 when the Cohuna consolidated school was established. Mead's school closed in 1992. Elwood Mead is also commemorated by Lake Mead on the Boulder Dam, Colorado River, Arizona, his last great project.

McMillans' census populations have been:

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Mead's figures were:

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