Merredin /ˈmɛrədɪn/ is a town in Western Australia, located in the central Wheatbelt roughly midway between Perth and Kalgoorlie, on Route 94, Great Eastern Highway.
It is located on the route of the Goldfields Water Supply Scheme, and as a result is also on the Golden Pipeline Heritage Trail.
Merredin's history varies from that of other wheat-belt towns in Western Australia in the sense that it started as a stopping place on the way to the goldfields.
The first European explorer into the area was the Surveyor General J. S. Roe, who travelled through the region in 1836 but was not impressed by its dryness and the low rainfall.
As late as 1889, when Assistant Surveyor Henry King set up camp on the north side of Merredin Rock, there was still no township.
The pipeline joined the waterless goldfields at Kalgoorlie and Boulder with the plentiful supplies of water in the Helena River east of Perth.
The narrow-gauge rail line from Merredin to Bruce Rock was built in 1913 to serve the developing sheep and wheat belt area of Western Australia, now known as the Great Southern.
In 2023 Merredin was listed among several Western Australian towns to be affected by an outbreak of the venereal disease syphilis.
[2] During World War II, Merredin was the location of RAAF No.26 Inland Aircraft Fuel Depot (IAFD), built in 1942 and closed on 14 June 1944.
[6] As a focal point for the region, Merredin's local bulk handling co-operative receives and processes in excess of a million tonnes of grain every year.
Roads, footpaths, buildings and open space have replaced native vegetation adapted to use up every drop of rain.
Since the problem arose in the early 1970s, farmers and townspeople have been participating in a number of programs to improve the soil conditions, with some limited success.
As of September 2016, the training school suspended operations in Merredin due to its inability to attract sufficient numbers of experienced staff with the appropriate regulatory approvals.