Trawool is a locality in central Victoria, Australia. The area lies on the middle reaches of the

Goulburn River The Goulburn River, a major inland perennial river of the Goulburn Broken catchment, part of the Murray-Darling basin, is located in the Alpine, Northern Country/North Central, and Southern Riverina regions of the Australian state of Victor ...

and on the Goulburn Valley Highway, north of the state capital,

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

. Originally named ''Traawool'', the indigenous word for 'wild water', the district is dominated by agriculture and scenery.

History

First explored by Hume and Hovell in 1824, it was later settled as a large

sheep station A sheep station is a large property ( station, the equivalent of a ranch) in Australia or New Zealand, whose main activity is the raising of sheep for their wool and/or meat. In Australia, sheep stations are usually in the south-east or sout ...

. Michael "Patrick" Burns (Born 1829,

Kilrush Kilrush () is a coastal town in County Clare, Ireland. It is also the name of a civil parish and an ecclesiastical parish in Roman Catholic Diocese of Killaloe. It is located near the mouth of the River Shannon in the south-west of the county. ...

County Clare County Clare () is a Counties of Ireland, county in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster in the Southern Region, Ireland, Southern part of Republic of Ireland, Ireland, bordered on the west by the Atlantic Ocean. Clare County Council ...

) selected land (now known as Mt Pleasant) once a part of the Tallarook Run in 1867. He had come from Sydney in 1857 to work for Michael Hickey ( Born 1825 Cratloe, County Clare) at Camp Hill, Tallarook. He and his family settled there on 20 March 1871. Burns lobbied for a

school A school is the educational institution (and, in the case of in-person learning, the Educational architecture, building) designed to provide learning environments for the teaching of students, usually under the direction of teachers. Most co ...

and donated the land. A portable school building was erected in 1885 and classes commenced the same year with a Helen McKay as Head Teacher. The Burns were actively involved with the Trawool community throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, including the introduction of the railway, the

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

(from 1886 to its closure in 1972), and entertaining servicemen from the Seymour Army Camp. Trawool Valley Resort is listed in the National Trust Heritage Register recognised for its importance as a scenic, geological and cultural site, and for its great diversity of flora and fauna. By 2018 the resort had fallen into a degree of disrepair, but after an auction in 2018 new owners extensively refurbished the buildings, and it re-opened in late 2019 as The Trawool Estate, an accommodation, dining, and events venue. The Trawool Hotel was established at a river crossing site. A punt was used to ferry passengers across the river until a bridge was built. When a railway branch line from Tallarook to Yea was created in 1883 the Trawool railway station was built. After a period of growth in the 1880s, the settlement went into decline although a granite

quarry A quarry is a type of open-pit mining, open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock (geology), rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some juri ...

was established in the area in the early 1890s. Australian and American troops were stationed at Trawool during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. Electricity arrived in the district in 1945. However Trawool school closed in 1959, the post office relocated in 1972 and the last train travelled on the local railway line in 1978.

References

External links

* {{authority control Towns in Victoria (state) Shire of Mitchell Shire of Murrindindi