Wahgunyah:
I have cobbled together the following historical snapshot from the Net and added my pictures at the end.
Wahgunyah is a small Murray River town of some 500 people located 272 km northeast of Melbourne via Wangaratta, which is 39 km to the southwest. As the river forms a substantial portion of the state border, Corowa, just 2 km away on the other side of the river, is part of New South Wales.
Charles Sturt explored the Murray River area in 1829-30 and, in 1838, led a droving party with 300 head of cattle through the district, en route to South Australia. It was also in 1838 that the party of John Foord set off from Yass with 1000 head of cattle, in search of fresh grazing land. Consequently, Foord and three business partners took up the 30 000-acre run known as 'Wahgunyah' (said to mean 'big camp') on the southern side of the river.
Their economic endeavours proved a success and were further enhanced by the opening up of the Victorian markets when river steamers appeared on the Murray in the early 1850s. At the same time gold was discovered at Beechworth and prospective diggers began flooding southwards over the river. Foord clearly saw an opportunity in the timing of these two developments. He purchased a punt, bought a steamship, built a flour mill, subdivided his holdings and established the private township of Wahgunyah to serve as the supply base between the river trade and the goldfields. He was also involved in the building of bond stores and hotels in the fledgling township. Settlers were encouraged to grow wheat for Foord's mill, as there was a ready market for local crops, and the township prospered as a river port, a trade depot and an important site for stock and passenger crossings. Many of the streets were named after members of the Foord family.
Gold was discovered on Foord's property, to the south of Wahgunyah, in 1858, leading to a major but short-lived gold rush. Initially known as Wahgunyah Rush, this became the town of Rutherglen.
The growing traffic of goods and people soon led to the accretion of a settlement on the northern bank. Foord purchased this land from the NSW government, had it surveyed and laid out in 1859 as North Wahgunyah, later renamed Corowa, although it was the southern settlement that initially prospered.
A privately licensed toll bridge, made of local red gum, was erected across the Murray in 1862 by a company, in which Foord was the major shareholder, in order to facilitate the passage of the diggers south and of Riverina grain and timber to Foord's own mills. Not surprisingly, the presence of the timber in the context of a river town led to a substantial boat-building industry. The first winery in the district was established in 1851. St Leonard's Winery and All Saints Estate were both started in the 1860s and both are still in operation.
At its peak Wahgunyah had seven hotels and was the busiest Murray port upstream of Echuca. A considerable number of Chinese took up residence in the town and district during the gold days.
The furore of the gold days dissipated after the initial rushes and the river trade began to decline in the 1880s due to the development of the railway system, its extension to other Murray River towns, the unreliability of water levels, the lack of a national strategy for the interstate river trade and improvements in road transport.
For those that are interested, what follows is a brief history of Beechworth sourced from the internet. I have added a few photos I took during our few days there.
Beechworth is an almost perfectly preserved and maintained historic gold mining town. It is surely the state's, if not the country's, best-preserved 19th-century gold town. It has over 30 buildings listed with the National Trust and, for the most part, they are substantial and often elegant buildings in excellent condition. Perhaps more important is the feel of the streetscape. The historic buildings in so many Australian towns tend to be 'cheek to jowl' with functional modern structures, creating a motley, incoherent and untidy effect. By comparison, Beechworth's streetscape is remarkably coherent and well preserved. The frequent usage of honey-coloured local granite as a building material lends further cohesiveness. Indeed, there is nothing to mar the overall feel, which is redolent of the past.
Naturally this motif of the past is central to the town's commercial orientation as a tourist town, but, even here, tastefulness prevails. The businesses are housed in appropriate buildings, there are some good second-hand booksellers, and many of the gift shops sell handcrafted items of genuine quality. Even the trash-and-treasure outlets tend to be charmingly unpretentious.
Finally the public parks and gardens, with their mature trees and interesting gardens, the wide tree-lined streets, the 19th-century residences and Beechworth's picturesque setting in the foothills of the Australian Alps contribute an indefinable but vital component to the graceful and dignified air that hangs over the park-like character of the town.
Beechworth is located 271 km northeast of Melbourne via the Hume Freeway and has an elevation above sea level of 550 metres.
Prior to European settlement several Aboriginal clans occupied the region, with the Min-jan-buttu occupying the area around Beechworth. They led a semi-nomadic existence, moving about according to the season. Spring saw them taking advantage of the plentiful water and food of the open plains with summer heralding a gathering of local tribes near Albury then an ascent of Mount Bogong for the annual Bogong moth feast and a cool high-altitude summer. At the end of the summer they set fire to the high plains to ensure regeneration. Winter was spent amid the shelter provided by the rocky outcrops of the foothills.
In 1839 a man named David Reid explored the area, which he named May Day Hills. He built a woolshed which lay behind the naming of Woolshed Creek and hence the later Woolshed Goldfield. The Beechworth gold rush was sparked when one of Reid's former shepherds, named Meldrum, found gold on Spring Creek in 1852. Numerous other gold discoveries were subsequently made and 800 people were in the area by late 1852. Storekeepers at May Day Hills asked the government to lay out a township which it did. The government surveyor named the town Beechworth in 1853 after his birthplace in the UK.
Reef mining of quartz soon replaced alluvial work as the main source of gold with the usage of dynamite leading to the creation of a powder magazine in 1860, which is still standing. Large companies were set up employing locals and the area became one of the country's most productive with about 120 000 kg extracted by 1866. Hydraulic sluicing was common with an estimated 1400 km of water races in existence by 1880. That same year, a mining company concluded the construction of an 800-metre tunnel extending under the township to run water off at Spring Creek. At its peak there were said to be 30,000 to 40,000 people and 61 drinking establishments on the local fields.
Consequently Beechworth became the central town of the Ovens River goldfields and the administrative centre for northeastern Victoria. Numerous public buildings were erected at this time, such as a hospital (1856), a hospital for the aged, a mental asylum, a flour mill (1855), law courts (1855) and, of course, a gaol was an early necessity (1853). The first local member was elected to parliament in 1855, the year the first local newspaper was established and the formalisation of the township can be seen with the 1856 layout of roads and footpaths and the prohibition of canvas-built shops and homes. A major employer at Beechworth for over a century was the Zwar Brothers tannery, which operated from 1858 until 1961. Beechworth benefited from being on the main Melbourne to Sydney road, although the town's importance declined when the railway was established in Wangaratta in 1873. The railway arrived at Beechworth in 1876.
Beechworth is said to have had the largest Chinese population in the country outside of Melbourne, with an estimated 7,000 on the local fields by the early 1860s. They worked hard, often intensively working claims abandoned by others, and established market gardens and tobacco growing. European resentment and racist sentiments led to a riot in the Buckland Valley in 1857, which saw Chinese miners bashed, robbed and killed.
The man sent to deal with the disorder was Robert O'Hara Burke who, in tandem with William Wills, led the first expedition to travel north-south across Australia. He served as superintendent of police at Beechworth from 1854 to 1858. The pistol that lay beside his body, when it was found at Coopers Creek, was inscribed 'Presented to Captain Burke by the residents of Beechworth, Victoria'.
Another character with some relation to the town was infamous highwayman, Dan 'Mad Dog' Morgan, who passed through the district in 1860 after breeching his ticket-of-leave conditions. He returned in 1865, bailing up travellers, stations and public houses, and it was from Beechworth that Superintendent Winch sent out all available police in search of the bushranger who was about to be outlawed by an Act of Parliament which gave legal sanction to his execution, without forewarning, by any party.
Australia's best-known bushranger, and arguably the country's most famous figure, Ned Kelly, together with his family and other gang members, also had a lengthy association with Beechworth - principally through its gaol and courthouse (see entry on Beechworth Gaol in the 'Things to See' section).
As the surface gold thinned out sluicing, dredging and deep-shaft mining became more prominent. In 1880 an 800-metre mining tunnel was cut through solid rock beneath the town. But as the shafts became deeper and the operations increased in scale, drainage and water supply issues became a problem. In the last quarter of the 19th century the town declined in importance as the mining activity diminished. Commercial mining of gold finally ceased in 1921 although local creeks are still panned for gold and the area is popular with gemstone fossickers.
The town stagnated until the 1960s when tourism emerged. The National Trust assisted locals in restoration projects. The government also upgraded the mental hospital and training prison and encouraged employment in the Forestry and Lands commissions.
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