Griffith

Griffith is a city in the Riverina region of New South Wales, Australia, at the center of the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area. Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin, the architects of Canberra, drew the plan of the town with streets curving in rings around a central square. They planned the nearby town of Leeton for the same irrigation area.

The town was named after Arthur Griffith, the state minister for public works who pushed for the irrigation scheme, and the first farm blocks were settled around 1916. Water from the Murrumbidgee River reaches the area through canals from dams upstream, and it turned the dry plain into orchards and vineyards. Settlement from Italy, especially from Veneto, Calabria and Friuli, grew from the 1920s, and Italian families planted vines and opened wineries that made Griffith a center of Australian wine.

Wine grapes from the vineyards around the city are crushed by family wineries of Italian origin, and oranges and other citrus fruits grow in the orchards beside the canals. Rice, cotton and prunes are also grown on the irrigated farms of the district.

The Pioneer Park Museum, on the slope of Scenic Hill, keeps old buildings from the irrigation area and a wine museum. Hermit's Cave, higher on the hill, was the home of Valerio Ricetti, an Italian immigrant who built stone walls, stairs and gardens there over many years. Each Easter the Griffith Festival of Gardens shows large sculptures made of oranges and other citrus fruits. The Griffith Regional Theatre stages touring plays and concerts in the center. La Festa, a festival of Italian food, music and dance, fills the main street each year.