The little town on the prairie (Richmond Valley) named after Monte Cassino in Italy. Somewhere along the way, it lost an “s” and now sounds like it’s a gambling den. But it’s not, no more than any other NSW town its size (10500 people). What Casino is, is the self-proclaimed Beef Capital of Australia, though Rockhampton has a giggle when it hears this.

Strangely, the CBD only marginally reflects Casino’s status as a cow town. There are not too many indications you are walking in a mini metropolis that’s devoted to the pursuits of droving and primary production, not unless it’s Beef Week which occurs in May. The CBD is L-shaped. You can start off at the roundabout junction of Centre St and Barker St and walk east. At first glance, it’s like most other towns in New South Wales its size – angle parking, broad main streets (well…once upon a time), a population mixture that’s predominantly Anglo-Celtic with a sizeable Indigenous minority (the Jambanna and parts of the Bundjalung nations) and an even smaller minority from outside these two groups. It’s no melting pot, that’s for sure, but Casino possesses one of the first Chinese retail establishments in Australia – Kwong Sings.

The Chinese arrived in Casino about 1870-1880 and their descendants include none other than that perpetually asleep purple Wiggle, Mr Jeff Fatt, who is a native of this town. Despite the 140 or so years his family has been in Casino, he still gets labelled as a Chinese-Australian, which is an indication that people classify and judge based on appearance, for reasons benevolent and otherwise. Would someone descended from Irish or Scottish settlers arriving in 1870 be classified the same way? Most likely not. Even the Lebanese who arrived here in the early 1900s and own a number of businesses, including Karam’s and Londy’s, don’t get labelled as Lebanese-Australians.

Kwong Sings is an arcade now, full of clothing and shoe shops and Londy’s is one of the more popular takeaway places in town. It’d be fair to say that the average denizen of Casino wouldn’t know or care of the ethnic origins of either place. It doesn’t matter in these fast times of convenience.

Midway down Barker St where the old Elders store was is a reminder that the real world looms large over this cow town. Metgasco have an office here, and despite popular opposition and some legislation, this gas mining company is proving as tenacious to work the land as the protesters are to keep them off. They keep hammering away with their PR campaigns and how mining benefits Australia, but I doubt too many people are buying it. Maybe it tickled my sense of whimsy, but I find it telling that their office sits between a florists and the probation/parole office. Sounds like a moment out of Monty Python.

Across the road from here is the Post Office (2470). Old sandstone edifice from the mid 1800s, rebuilt and refurbished over the years. A mobile phone and communications tower stands behind it, a reminder that cow town is part of the larger, connected world. As we move on, we come to another roundabout (no traffic lights in Casino) and we turn south into Walker St. On the northwestern corner is another sandstone edifice: the School of Arts. Upstairs, is one of Casino’s two libraries, the other being the council one just behind Barker St back where we came from. The School of Arts library has a wonderful collection of local history, though the overwhelming majority of it is settler history, but you’ll find all sorts of fascinating minutiae here – self-published tomes on everything from the history of Casino’s saleyards, the prosperity the Sydney-Brisbane rail line brought to the dances at the various halls in the localities around Casino. There’s precious little history here about cow town’s original inhabitants, but it’s there if you dig for it. You’re better off in this regard to see one of the local Indigenous land councils who can give you a history that goes back to the Dreaming.

Years ago, the two streets were your typical NSW country town streets; broad, almost forty feet wide. Nowadays, the council has undertaken a gentrification program. Median strips with planted native trees, nose-in parking rather than the usual reverse-in, and even a hi-tech toilet on Walker St. So rather than the broad, stretched out relic of rural planning it once was, the two streets feel closer in now and I imagine that’s an intended effect – a “village-ification” of this staid country town. Rather than walk down a footpath of some settler relic, you’re engaging in a community activity. The median strips contain bunting and flags and the whole thing seems almost festive.

Has it brought Casino closer? Has it made us participating citizens? Well, at Beef Week in May, sure. But I’d argue that this “doing-up” of the two main drags is window-dressing. I said gentrification and that’s probably what it is. The “upper classing” of something formally working class. But it’s pleasant to walk down and there’s a transient illusion that you’re somewhere community-minded, rather than being in a town which gets its fame from cattle.