 Cattle raising was the major industry in the 1840s with sheep becoming predominant in the 1860s . At this time many Victorians settled in the Riverina to breed sheep and cattle to feed the miners taking part in the Victorian Gold Rush . The herds were considered inferior at first , but these pastures were good for stock , and the land which seemed a desert was actually good fattening country . In the 1860s and 1870s , German settlers from the Barossa Valley travelled upstream to settle in the eastern Riverina . Because of their religious distinctiveness as Lutherans , they preferred to form clustered German settlements . In 1867 and 1868 several land parcels were taken up in the <unk> area . 56 German farmers , in 1869 , took six weeks to travel six hundred miles in covered wagons to establish the town of Walla Walla . Nearby Holbrook was originally named Germantown after these settlers until changing its name in 1914 as a result of tensions caused by World War I. 
