Koroop

Koroop is a rural locality east of Kerang, reaching to Koondrook on the Murray River and to Macorna North. It is situated on an alluvium plain through which meander the Pyramid and Barr Creeks.

Farm selections were taken up in the mid-1870s and a school was opened in 1879. The Koroop post office also opened in 1879, but the origin of the place name is apparently unrecorded. Settlement concentrated around Barr Creek where the Cohuna Water Trust built several small weirs in the 1880s for irrigation.

The Koroop district was supplied by the Cohuna irrigation channel, flowing south of the village. Around Barr Creek however, it was recorded that as early as 1912 there were signs of soil salinity. The main farm outputs were dairying, sheep and pasture crops.

A public hall was constructed in 1926 and replaced in 1954 after it had collapsed. Until the early 1950s rabbit plagues had held back farm production, although the occasional rabbit drive brought hall funds from rabbit pelts.

In an era more innocent than today, local musicians formed a dance band called the Gay Charmers in 1963 and ran regular dances at the hall for 35 years. Electricity had been switched on at Koroop the year before.

In 1975 Koroop’s school closed.

Koroop’s census populations have been: