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Under the lights: the halls where Tumut danced, welcomed its soldiers and celebrated the harvest

From the Rising Moon Hotel’s purpose-built saloon in 1856 to O’Brien’s Tumut Hall and the 1959 Millet Cutters’ Ball at Tumut Plains Hall, dances did much more than entertain. They promoted businesses, welcomed soldiers, raised money for commemorative medals and transformed rural work into public celebration. The surviving record also has limits: it privileges officials, proprietors and prominent European families, while saying little about much of the labour behind the events or the participation of Aboriginal people from the Tumut–Brungle district.