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Casino is this year celebrating 150 years since it was officially proclaimed a town, a history built on grazing, timber, the river and transportation.
Joan Newman, President of the Casino and District Historical Society, says an area of the Richmond River known as the 'crossing place' played an important part in the early history of the town.
Ms Newman recalls that "it was 1840 when the first Europeans came and there had been a settlement built up at what they called the 'Crossing Place', of course there was no bridge then, but at the end of West Street, just a block up the river from where the bridge is, there was a shallow rock bottom area where people could cross the river".
"That was actually the only road from the Clarence to Brisbane and Ipswich. Ipswich was an important town then and that was the only road up and over Mt Lindsay by horseback."
While Casino is holding its sesquicentenary celebrations on the October long week-end, Ms Newman recalls that Casino was actually proclaimed a town in November 1855.
"The town was proclaimed a town on the 11th of November and was gazetted in the government gazette on the 30th November."
"Up until then there had been a settlement in Casino. People had been living here for 15 years and over that period the settlement had built up, there was an inn up near the 'crossing place'and an accommodation place, a little shop, a few buildings, a blacksmiths shop and a few people had set up buildings."
According to Ms Newman, the first European settlers to arrive in Casino were two men called Henry Clay and George Stapleton who were accompanied by a team of station hands.
"They came here and took up a big area of ground including what is now the township of Casino and they had a station called Cassino but it had two 's's and apparently one of those men had some involvement with Monte Cassino in Italy, he was not Italian but he had some connection."
"They only stayed a few years and they ran into troubles because of droughts and financial difficulty and the station was passed on to a man called Clark Irving who later changed the name of the station to Tomki and that is on the Lismore road about halfway between Casino and Lismore."
"Tomki is still there, it is only a small area now because a lot of it has been sub-divided and sold as farms but there is still a small area there known as Tomki."
Ms Newman says many of the settlers that followed the first settlers moved up to the Casino area from the Clarence region.
"They were mainly timber getters and when cedar was getting a bit less in the Clarence area and they found out about the good stands along the Richmond River, they moved over here. A lot of them came overland and whole families just walked from Grafton through to Richmond to take up their positions here."
Like many towns on the North Coast, the river was very important to the growth and development of Casino.
"Casino would never have developed as a town without the river because at that time everything came by river, people moved by river, all the goods came by river and all the commodities," Ms Newman said.
"Boats couldn't quite come to Casino they just stayed on the eastern side at a place called Irvington but everything just came by boat and everything, like timber, was moved away by river."
Ms Dawson says the opening of various train services in the early 1900s drew great celebrations from the local community with new rail services meaning a lot to people from that era.
The Lismore to Murwillumbah railway was opened in 1894 with the line extended to Casino in 1903. The Casino to Kyogle rail line opened with much fanfare in 1910. The opening of the Border Loop line from Kyogle to Brisbane in 1930 and the Grafton railway bridge two years later saw Casino flourishing as a major centre.
"Before the rail started running, people went by coach or by horseback to Brisbane. If people wanted to go to Sydney for a holiday they had to go to Byron Bay by coach or by horse and sulky or whatever and catch an ocean boat from Byron Bay to Sydney and you can imagine the problems in travel then. The train meant a trip straight through," Ms Newman said.

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