Before European settlers arrived in Young, members of the Burrowmunditory tribe, a family group of the indigenousWiradjuri Nation, lived in the region. Descendants of the Burrowmunditory clan still live in Young. James White was the first European settler in the district and established Burrangong Station in 1826 with a squatting claim of. His story is told in the novelBrothers in Exile. Gold was found in the district in 1860. Until that time the area was called Lambing Flat, a reference to the grazing of sheep that was the main industry until mining. The town was gazetted in 1861. The goldfields produced of gold sent by escort from the fields. Up to 20,000 miners worked the fields including about 2,000 Chinese miners. From November 1860 through to June 1861, anti-Chinese miners attacked Chinese gold miners in the area, now known as the infamous Lambing Flat riots. As gold became scarce, European miners began to resent what they saw as the greater success of the more industrious Chinese, and hence many Chinese miners were attacked, robbed and killed. The anti-Chinese rebels rallied in numbers of up to 3,000. Eventually the rioters were controlled, Chinese miners had their claims restored to them, but the New South Wales Parliament passed the Chinese Immigration Bill which restricted the number of Chinese that could be brought into New South Wales on any ship and imposed a tax per head on entry. In 1889 Young was the first town in Australia to install electricity into the streets and homes of the township; Tamworth NSW had installed electricity to the streets only the previous year. The former Young Shire was acknowledged as the first Local Government Area to institute a rural school bus system in New South Wales.
Heritage listings
Young has a number of heritage-listed sites, including:
Owing to Young's far western location, it yields hot, dry summers and cool, damp winters; reflecting a distinctly "continental" climate of the South West Slopes region. Snow falls occasionally; notwithstanding its fairly low elevation of approximately 400 m, the windward position of Young exposes it to strong south-westerly frontal systems. Thus, places such as Goulburn farther east receive less winter moisture than Young, due to more adequate sheltering from these fronts. Climate data is sourced from Young Airport; at an elevation of and operating since 1988.
Demographics
On night, 9 August 2016, there were 7,170 people counted in Young. There were 367 people who identified as being of Indigenous origin. The median age of people was 40 years. The number of people born overseas in the 2016 Census was 1023 compared with 650 in the 2001 Census, 589 in the 1996 Census and 549 in the 1991 Census. Of those born overseas, the three main countries of birth in the 2016 Census were:
England: 95
New Zealand: 47 and;
Lebanon: 37.
In the 2016 Census, the three most common ancestries identified with were:
Australian: 3405 people
English: 2957 people and;
Irish: 1045 people.
English was stated as the only language spoken at home by 6,413 people in the 2016 Census. The three most common languages spoken at home other than English in the 2016 Census were:
Arabic : 88
Tagalog: 22 and;
Mandarin: 22.
In the week preceding the 2016 Census, 1894 households had accessed the internet at home. 501 people held a bachelor's degree or above. 212 people were unemployed, representing 7.6% of the labour force. The median weekly individual income for people aged 15 years and over in the 2016 Census was $505. In the 2016 Census, there were 2,324 separate houses, 202 semi-detached, row or terrace houses and townhouses, 257 flats, units or apartments and 3 other dwellings. In the 2016 Census, there were 594 couple families with children, 675 couple families without children, 431 one parent families and 28 other families.
Young Shire Council established the Lambing Flat Chinese Tribute Gardens adjacent to the site of Chinamans Dam, an old railway dam approximately south of Young. The gardens are intended to create an ambience similar to the Japanese Gardens at Cowra. Chinamans Dam, with an initial capacity of over when it was in railway use, is situated at a hamlet called Pitstone on Sawpit Gully. The dam was built in the 1860s by Dutch brothers, Herman and John Tiedemann, to provide water for the sluicing of their Victoria Hill gold claims. At some time in the 1870s, the brothers sold the area, including the dam, to a Chinese group who worked the site. The dam was used as a railway facility from 1882 when the NSW Railway Commissioners gave notice of the intention to build the first part of the Blayney-Demondrille railway. To provide water for its steam locomotives, the Commissioners decided to provide a dam and pump water from it to a facility, known as Young Tank, at the post. It is not known whether the railways enhanced the existing dam or built a new facility. From 1885 to 1901, locomotives stopped at Young Tank to replenish their water. In 1901, watering facilities were built at Young Station. The supply of water was obtained from Chinamans Dam. The capacity of the dam was enlarged in 1911. The dam was a popular spot for swimming and, whilst officially frowned upon, was tolerated. Following the connection to the South West Tablelands Water Supply Scheme, which provided water from Burrinjuck Dam, the railways ceased to draw water from Chinamans Dam after 1936. The site was returned to the Crown in 1962 and in the following year, a reserve was established and the Shire Council were appointed as trustees. The dam has since been enlarged.
