"[4] The final "rr" sound was spelled in English with a double-S, apparently after being misheard as such due to its "sharp and forcible" quality.
'Banjo' Paterson, arrived in the district in 1871 at the age of seven, passed his childhood there, and later bought a property in the Wee Jasper area so that his children could experience country life.
Poet and priest Patrick Hartigan (pen name: John O'Brien) was born near Yass in 1878, and studied at the local convent school as a youth.
Yass is a prominent area for raising sheep which produces very fine wool due to the soil and climatic conditions.
[9] It has never been explained why Yass was the home to a number of flour mills, especially as the district is well known for the production of fine merino fleece.
These connections no doubt lead to the choice of the site of Barber's next mill as the land was originally owned by Hume.
According to information from Ralph Crago (letters written in 1955 and 1970) "Around – once more it is only a guess - the turn of the century or early in the new one – the stones [in the Commercial Mill] were replaced by steel rollers by a firm called Henry Simon & Co & the steam power was replaced by suction gas made from charcoal.
We bought a lot of our charcoal from the Jerrawa area when small farmers added to their income & trucked it by rail to Yass."
and "The Crago Brothers were very proud of winning a bronze medal at the Wembley Exhibition in the early 1900s for flour made at Yass".
Faced with the cost of erecting bulk handling facilities, the Crago family sold the Commercial Mill to the stock and station agents Winchombe Carson.
Yass has a number of heritage-listed sites, including: Cooma Cottage is one of the oldest surviving rural houses in New South Wales.
It has historic significance as a relatively intact complex of rural buildings and links to explorer and grazier Hamilton Hume.
St Augustine's Parish Yass began in 1838 with the laying of the foundation stone of the church now called the chapel.
Fifty-year celebrations were organised on 29 April 2006 by Father Laurie Bent, who was Parish Priest in Yass at the time.
Exhibitions pay tribute to the life and work of explorer and grazier Hamilton Hume, Yass soldiers and nurses who served in 20th-century wars, the Inns of Yass, Burrinjuck Dam; and illustrate a 19th-century shop, parlour and kitchen, rural life and work in a woolshed.
The climate in Yass is intermediate between the Southern Tablelands and South West Slopes, having characteristics of both zones.
Yass has a relatively dry climate owing to its rainshadow from the southwest (being east of Conroys Gap), however is exposed to the west and northwest.
Snow falls occasionally but is usually light and rarely settles, though heavy snowfalls do occur on the hills to the southwest (around Wee Jasper).
Usually a two-day event, it was reduced to one day to allow volunteers to handle the restrictions imposed due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia.
[30] In the modern novel An Indecent Obsession by Colleen McCullough, Yass it's the residence of the main character Honour Langhtry, the heroine of the story.