The First World War was an era-defining conflict, so vast in its scale and profound in its impact that a century on it remains the focus of a voluminous scholarly and popular literature.  This paper considers the way the war was understood at the local level in Australia.  Focusing on the New South Wales town of Wagga Wagga and its surrounds, I place particular emphasis on the district’s returned soldiers.  I discuss writing history based on veterans’ stories, the wealth of sources that document Wagga’s past and the value of adopting a narrow geographical but broad temporal approach to reach wider conclusions about the national experience.