The first European to explore the area was
Henry John Rous in 1828. The area was used for dairy farming and fruit growing. In 2022, the town was affected by the
eastern Australia floods.
Origins and name building In the 1850s Europeans had established a camp site at the junction of two arms of the
Brunswick River. This grew to become a village and later the township of Mullumbimby. Mullumbimby was originally a centre for the timber industry. Notably,
red cedar was collected in great quantities from around the area, a part of the far northern New South Wales "
Big Scrub". The town was a logical site for settlement by the timber hunters, as the Brunswick River is tidal in the town and navigable to that point, allowing logs to be floated down the river to its mouth at
Brunswick Heads. The town's central location gave access to most of the catchment area, and it provided the best position for bullock teams to cross the river with their wagons loaded with timber. At low tide it is still possible to see the shallow region where the bullocks made the crossing of the Brunswick River, under the current "Federation Bridge" on Murwillumbah Road. The name "Mullumbimby", meaning "small round hill", was given to the district by Aboriginal people. The name is derived from the
Bandjalung-Yugambeh dialect mulubinba (possibly also pertaining to a native fern which grew in the vicinity). Although some sources claim this is because of the proximity of
Mount Chincogan, however this mountain is likely too prominent in the landscape to fit the name. An alternative theory is that it refers to another smaller and rounder hill. Suggestions include a medium hill to the north of Left Bank road, on which the towns water tower is located, or a smaller hill on Coolamon Scenic Drive, situated on the Daly Family Farm, near the current golf course. This latter hill is possibly supported by the abundant grass flats which surrounded it, known as Mullumbimby Grass. Mullumbimby Grass are naturally open grass flats, presumably hunting grounds for the local
Bundjalung people and they were later used by early European timber hunters to graze their bullock teams. Byron Shire, including Mullumbimby and nearby
Byron Bay, became a centre of alternative or counter culture alongside the extant mainstream culture in the 1970s and 1980s, and remains so today. The male choir Dustyesky performs Russian-language folk songs and received major coverage on the Russian television broadcaster
Channel One. Once the most notable specimens of the valuable timber trees had been collected (most notably red cedar, but also
Australian teak,
hoop pine,
rosewood,
silky oak and
black and
red bean), the Big Scrub timber trade collapsed and Mullumbimby became primarily a farming community. Like many areas of the
Big Scrub, allotments were given in Mullumbimby and the surrounding areas by the
New South Wales government on the condition that the owner cleared the land for agricultural use. Beef and dairy, along with bananas and sugar cane have traditionally been the notable products of the area. However, the subdivision of many of the larger farms and the emergence of numerous small scale farmers has led to a higher diversity of products. A weekly farmers' market has been developed to exhibit local produce. A
static inverter plant of
HVDC Directlink is located at Laverty's Gap near Mullumbimby. This inverter plant was previously the site of a 288 kW
hydroelectric power scheme that powered Mullumbimby, Byron Bay and
Bangalow from 1926, using water from a
weir in nearby
Wilsons Creek. The scheme was the fourth hydro electric power station in NSW and only the fifth on mainland Australia. Powering Mullumbimby for the first time in 1925, the scheme made Mullumbimby one of the first country towns in NSW to receive electricity. The site is being considered for
pumped-storage hydroelectricity. The
Mullumbimby Star, which was published under a number of names over its history, was a newspaper published in the town from 1902 to 1982. ==Heritage listings==