1870 Cobb and Co start operations in Wentworth.
1872 First Commercial hotel built. Also St. Francis Xaviers Catholic church, a bank and the Wentworth Gaol built.
1876 Stumpjump plough speeded up clearing of farmland.
1877 Gol gol hotel built (on Murray river, opposite Mildura).
1879 Christina Power/Minogue married Frederick William Wilkes. Selina Wilkes born.

1880 Ned Kelly hanged in Melbourne. Wentworth race track set up.
1882 Nuns came to Wentworth from Deniliquin.
1882 Chaffey brothers set up irrigation schemes in Canada.
1883 Maysie Wilkes born.
1884 William Frederick Wilkes born.
1885 Frederick William Wilkes became Town Clerk of Wentworth.
The Victorian Irrigation Mission to America, headed by Alfred Deakin (who went on the become Prime Minister of Australia three times), arrived in San Francisco, to seek ideas on how to irrigate the land. They asked George and William Chaffey to go to Australia to look at possible sites for irrigation projects.
1886 The Chaffey brothers came to Australia and began building an irrigated farm community on the Murray River (at what is now Mildura). They described it as ‘one of the most barren regions of the world’.
1887 Bernard Wilkes born.
Chaffeys set up more irrigated farms at Renmark (near Adelaide) and an Act was passed for the agricultural development of the Murray River.

1890s A nationwide economic depression, partly a result of overgrazing of sheep and the spread of rabbits in the 1880s. This was made worse along the Darling river where there was a rabbit plague, a drought, and transportation difficulties. Almost ll the vegetation on the sheep stations was destroyed. Millions of acres of pastoral land were abandoned. The price of wool dropped, and this led to a lowering of wages.
Shearers in Queensland and New South Wales went on the first shearer’s strikes (against low wages) in Australia.
A railway line had been promised to Mildura, but had not happened.

1891/1892 EJ Sykes arrived as a schoolteacher in the lower
Darling area and stayed at Moorara station.
Sheep population in Australia peaked.
1892 Charles McMahon (Des Sykes' godfather) purchased the Swan Hill to Wentworth coach service.
1893 The Chaffeys had 8,000 acres irrigated, and 3,500 pioneer fruit growers resided in Mildura. At first they used steamboat engines to drive the irrigation pumps.
1894 Liquidation of Chaffey Brothers Ltd.
The paddle steamer Rodney carryied 40 non union ‘scab’ shearers to break a shearer’s strike at Tolarno station on the Darling. It was seized by 150 striking shearers at Polia station, (north of Moorara station, where EJ arrived two years earlier). The passengers and crew were moved to shore, and the Rodney set alight and burnt to the water line
1897 George Chaffey returned to America. William remained and in the next 20 years rebuilt the business. William is now known as the "father of Mildura".
1899 Start of Boer War, in which the British sought to control areas of South Africa, and in which Australian soldiers fought.