"selectors" moved into what would become the ACT, taking up parcels of (usually inferior) land which existed between the estates of the wealthy, established landholders. During colonial times, prior to the establishment of the ACT, the European communities of Ginninderra, Molonglo and Tuggeranong settled in and farmed the surrounding land, raising sheep in the main but also breeding horses and growing grain. The region was also called the Queanbeyan/Yass district, after the two largest towns in the area. The villages of Ginninderra and Tharwa developed to service the local agrarian communities. In 1882, the first allotments in the village of Hall – named after early pastoralist Henry Hall – were sold. By 1901, it was an established town with a hotel, coachbuilder, blacksmith, butcher, shoemaker, saddler, dairy and two stores. In 1886, the agronomist William Farrer, established the research farm 'Lambrigg' on the banks of the Murrumbidgee south of present-day Tuggeranong. Farrer experimented with rust and drought-resistant wheat; the varieties he bred were widely used by Australian growers, and he was later credited with establishing Australia as a major producer. Tharwa Bridge, the oldest surviving bridge in the region, was opened in 1895 and was the first crossing over the Murrumbidgee River. By 1911, when the region came under federal control, the population had grown to 1,714 settlers. Relations with indigenous people During the first 20 years of settlement, there was only limited contact between the settlers and Aboriginal people. Joseph Franklin purchased land in the Brindabellas in 1849 and attempted to set up a cattle farm. His livestock were slaughtered by the local Aboriginal people and he was driven back out of the mountains. The rush of prospectors into the Kiandra area through the Brindabellas and the mountains to the west of the ACT as a result of the Kiandra goldrush led to conflict with the Aboriginal people. By the time Franklin returned to the Brindabellas in 1863, the indigenous population had been significantly reduced. Over the succeeding years, the Ngunnawal and other local indigenous people effectively ceased to exist as cohesive and independent communities adhering to their traditional ways of life. Those who had not succumbed to disease and other predations either dispersed to the local settlements or were relocated to more distant Aboriginal reserves set up by the New South Wales government in the latter part of the 19th century. The children of mixed European-Aboriginal families were