Northern Australia represents a global stronghold for sawfishes, estuarine predators facing severe worldwide declines as a result of bycatch and trophy-keeping. Without historical baselines however, the true magnitude of population declines remains obscured, limiting effective conservation planning. Through extensive archival research, we compiled records from (n = 847) newspaper articles, (n = 189) museum specimens, and (n = 188) citizen scientist reports to reconstruct historical sawfish distributions (1875 – 1990) along Australia’s east coast. Records revealed previously unpublished hotspots for P. zijsron and extended the historic ranges for both P. clavata and A. cuspidata. Generalised additive models showed an increase and subsequent crash in sawfish catches, as well as a fragmented shift northward beginning in 1930 and intensifying in the late 1940’s. Extinction timelines suggest that following the introduction of netting, sawfishes were removed from their southern extent in under 100 years. Meanwhile, text analyses documented both ‘monster’ and ‘pest’ narratives, with positive associations limited to trophy value. These findings establish critical historical baselines for future distribution modelling in Australia, while demonstrating the many dimensions and rapid pace of bycatch-induced population collapse for coastal megafauna.