Hume Dam
Bethanga Bridge is of historical significance to New South Wales for its associations with the construction of Hume Dam, a major national undertaking of the early twentieth century. It is also of historical significance for its associations with The River Murray Waters Agreement and the River Murray Commission which had the task of putting the agreement into effect. The Agreement was a landmark document that drew on the cooperation of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia to regulate the flow of the Murray River. The bridge reflects the engineering and design approaches of the State Rivers and Water Supply Commission and New South Wales Public Works Department in the late 1920s and the influence of American engineering Practice in the use of the Pratt truss. The bridge is also a significanc marker of the anticipated development that the new Hume Weir was expected to bring to the region, serving, as it did, only a few small farming communities and the copper and gold mining areas of Bethanga and Talarno, which were already in steep decline at the time the bridge was completed.