Tibooburra is an outback town located about 340 kilometres north of Broken Hill in the north western corner of New South Wales. It is an essential service centre for the people of the "Corner Country", in addition to the many thousands of visitors who pass through Tibooburra each year.
Tibooburra came into existence with the discovery of gold at Mt Browne and then Tibooburra itself in 1881. Thousands of miners arrived in the area that year, leading the government to survey the Tibooburra townsite and contsruct a post office.
Tibooburra is reputedly the word for "heap of rocks" in one of the local Aboriginal languages. The Wangkumara and Maljangapa peoples lived in the Tibooburra area for at least 25,000 years. Aboriginal sites of significance in the area include camp sites, ceremonial sites, tool productions sites and scarred trees.
The first Europeans to arrive in the Tibooburra area were Charles Sturt and his exploration party in 1845. Searching for the mythical "inland sea", they explored the Corner Country while stranded at Milparinka. Sturt was followed by Burke and Wills who traversed the region on their way north to Queensland in 1860.
Named after the ancient granite outcrops that surround the town, the goldfields of the Tibooburra region were originally known as "The Granites" and formed part of the Albert Goldfields. While some pastoral holdings were established around Tibooburra, yields were disappointing and the town never quite prospered. Drought and lack of water was a chronic problem, with diseases such as typhoid and dysentery taking their toll on the early European settlers. Over the subsequent decade, Tibooburra improved with construction of a school in 1885, courthouse in 1888 and hospital in 1890.
Today, Tibooburra is home to several government agencies including the National Parks and Wildlife Service, the New South Wales police, and the Roads and Traffic Authority. Tibooburra has two hotels, motel rooms, cabins and a caravan park to accommodate visitors.