Prior to European settlement the area was occupied by the Pangerang Aborigines. The first white men in the area were probably the explorers Hume and Hovell who crossed the river 22 km downstream of the present townsite in 1824. They named the river Ovens after Irish-born soldier and chief engineer of NSW Major John Ovens (an aide-de-camp to Governor Brisbane).
Surveyor Thomas Mitchell crossed the river on or near the townsite during his 'Australia Felix' expedition of 1836 which effectively delineated the first Sydney-Melbourne Road. As Melbourne emerged others followed in his wake, fording the river on the future townsite which became known as the Ovens Crossing Place.
Meanwhile, George Faithfull established the 'Wangaratta' cattle station on the Ovens River in 1837 or 1838. He had plans to push further south but, when overlanders in his employ headed south from this point, they were killed by Aborigines (see entry on Benalla) and he decided to remain at 'Wangaratta'. The name derived from an Aboriginal term possibly meaning 'nesting place of cormorants'.
The first settler at the actual crossing site was Thomas Rattray who established a sly grog shop and a punt service adjacent the southern riverbank in 1838 to capitalise on the growing through-traffic. The following year the enterprise was sold to William Clark, regarded as the 'Father of Wangaratta'. He built a slab-timber store with a bark roof and 4-cm slits in the slabs instead of windows, to prevent ingress for attacking Aborigines and to enable the egress of gunfire. He later built a larger and better structure which served as the Hope Inn. A postal outlet opened in 1843.
John Bond then built a slab-and-bark store and inn on the other side of the river where noted Presbyterian clergyman John Dunmore Lang stayed in 1846.
A settlement of slab-and-bark structures began to appear by the crossing with the first brick building erected in 1848. The township was laid out the following year.
In the early 1850s the settlement was almost deserted as people flocked to the new gold diggings but it soon began to prosper from the traffic to the Ovens diggings and the subsequent demand for produce and fresh meat. More town allotments were sold in 1855 - the year a bridge over the Ovens River replaced the old punt service which had recently been manned by a gentleman who had been providing information about stock traffic to horse and cattle thieves. After the bridge appeared he became a bushranger.
The location of the bridge caused some surprise. Legend has it that the surveyor was thrown out of Clark's inn and he therefore recommended the Murphy St site to steer custom away from Clark who was situated in Ovens St.
In all, ten inns emerged and a brewery but it was the town's role as a service centre which held the key to its development. A courthouse was erected in 1859 and the settlement became a borough in 1863. Work began on St Patrick's Catholic Church in 1865.
Notorious bushranger Dan 'Mad Dog' Morgan committed some robberies in the area in 1860 after breaching his ticket-of-leave conditions. On about April 2, 1865 he stole a racehorse at Tarrawingee, 11 km south-east of Wangaratta, headed south-east to Tawonga, then north-west. On April 8 he bailed up a property 13 km west of Wangaratta and forced the women to make him breakfast. When some neighbours passed by he took their finest horse and gave false indications of his intentions.
Morgan then got lost in dense bush until he encountered Robert Telford, the overseer of Peechelba Station, 35 km north of Wangaratta. Telford was forced, at gunpoint, to take Morgan to the homestead where he gathered the household together and assured them he only wanted a horse and a meal. Morgan had not slept for five days and was evidently starved of company for he relaxed and chatted and stayed overnight instead of capitalising on his lead.
In the course of the night servant girls escaped and informed a nearby neighbour who gathered arms and sent word to the police at Wangaratta. Overnight, troopers and civilians surrounded the homestead and waited until Morgan emerged at about 8.00 a.m. Although Superintendant Cobham told the posse that he favoured a shot to the legs so Morgan could be caught alive, a stationhand, John Wendlan (who was perhaps anxious to be the man to bring Morgan down) fired the only shot. The bullet hit the bushranger's shoulder and then pierced his throat. He was dragged to a woolshed where he died nearly six hours later.
Popular demand led to the brief public display of his body at Wangaratta where it was lain against some wool bales, revolver in hand and eyes propped open with matchsticks for a safe photo opportunity. Superintendant Cobham had Morgan's beard skinned from his face as a souvenir (he took it to Benalla and had it pegged out to dry) and other sources suggest that tobacco pouches were made from his scrotum and other portions of his skin.
Furthemore, Morgan's reputation as a gorilla-like sub-human and a criminal prone to psychopathic rages aroused the interest of the medical fraternity. Consequently, Morgan was decapitated and his head was sent to Melbourne for phrenological studies aimed at seeking physiological correspondences to his criminality.
The humiliation of his corpse caused an outcry in some quarters and both Superintendant Cobham and Dr Dobbyn (the coroner) were suspended until local support caused their reinstatement. After arguments about the 1000 pounds reward, Wendlan's pre-emptive strike paid off. He received half the money, with the servant girls, volunteers and police divying up the remainder.
Another famous bushranger who spent most of his life in the Wangaratta district (see entries on Euroa, Glenrowan and Beechworth) was Ned Kelly. Prior to being outlawed he also worked as a builder in the area and some of his handiwork is thought to have been carried out on the Catholic Church at Boorhaman (19 km north of Wangaratta) and at Tarrawingee.
The railway arrived at Wangaratta in 1873 and, by 1884, the town had around 1400 residents, four churches, three flour mills, a tobacco factory, two breweries, several foundries, a tannery, a hospital and a town hall. A theatre in Murphy St served as a venue for Dame Nellie Melba at the turn of the century.
A wool-processing mill was opened by local citizens in 1923 for the advancement of the community and textiles have remained important to the city to this day. In the years since World War II Wangaratta has become a prosperous business centre. It was declared a city in 1959.
The Wangaratta Rural Expo is held in February at the Wangaratta Livestock Selling Complex and the Agricultural Show in October. The major local event on the calendar is the Wangaratta Festival of Jazz and Blues which attracts artists of genuinely international stature. It incorporates the National Jazz Awards and is held on the Melbourne Cup weekend in November. Two regional events are the Winery Walkabout on the Queen's Birthday weekend in June and March's Wine and Food Weekend.
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