 It was proposed as the village name by Thomas Perry, a local farmer whose grandfather had maintained a friendship with both Moore and the first New South Wales Surveyor General, Thomas Mitchell.In 1864 the bushranger Captain Thunderbolt carried out one of his first armed robberies by holding up the northern mail as it passed through Bendemeer.The first bridge over the McDonald River was constructed in 1874, and the steel and timber truss bridge was opened on 29 September 1905.