Eldorado, or El Dorado, is a small town in the
Rural City of Wangaratta
The Rural City of Wangaratta is a Local government areas of Victoria, local government area in the Hume (region), Hume region of Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, located in the north-east part of the state. It covers an area of and, ...
,
Victoria, Australia
Victoria, commonly abbreviated as Vic, is a state in southeastern Australia. It is the second-smallest state (after Tasmania), with a land area of ; the second-most-populated state (after New South Wales), with a population of over 7 million; ...
. At the
2016 census, Eldorado had a population of 264,
[
] down from a population of 287 at the time of the
2006 census.
[
]
History
Eldorado was named after the legend of
El Dorado
El Dorado () is a mythical city of gold supposedly located somewhere in South America. The king of this city was said to be so rich that he would cover himself from head to foot in gold dust – either daily or on certain ceremonial occasions â ...
in 1840 by William Baker, the name he used for his run.
Even though the name refers to a land abounding in
gold
Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...
there was no gold found in Eldorado until the 1850s when it became a thriving
gold rush
A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, ...
town. Eldorado Post Office opened on 1 August 1861.
The town's population declined sharply after the area ceased to yield gold.
The remains of an old
gold dredge
A gold dredge is a placer mining machine that extracts gold from sand, gravel, and dirt using water and mechanical methods. Original gold dredges were large, multi-story machines built in the first half of the 1900s. In modern times the term r ...
can still be seen today.
This is a large steel dredge which was designed and built by Thompson's Engineering for the Cocks Eldorado Gold Dredging Company in 1935–36. By the time it was decommissioned it had dredged 30 million cubic metres from the river flats of the Eldorado Plain. It has 110 digging buckets, each of which was capable of digging and lifting 0.3 cubic metres of soil.
The dredge received an Engineering Heritage National Marker from
Engineers Australia
Engineers Australia (EA), known formally as the Institution of Engineers, Australia, is an Australian professional body and Non-profit organization, not-for-profit organisation whose purpose is to advance the science and practice of engineerin ...
as part of its
Engineering Heritage Recognition Program.
Sport
The town is currently home to the Wolfpack RLFC, a
rugby league
Rugby league football, commonly known as rugby league in English-speaking countries and rugby 13/XIII in non-Anglophone Europe, is a contact sport, full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular Rugby league playin ...
club who compete in the
Goulburn Murray Rugby League competition. The side won their first premiership in 2023, and play at the Eldorado Recreation Reserve.
Eldorado was home to an Australian Rules football team from 1925 to 1954, which competed in the
Ovens & King Football League.
Gallery
File:Eldorado Victoria aerial.jpg, Aerial photo from south east
File:EldoradoTownEntrySign.JPG, Entering Eldorado
File:EldoradoGoldDredge.JPG, Gold dredge
File:EldoradoStreet.JPG, A residential street
File:EldoradoSoldiersMemorialBusShelter.JPG, Memorial bus shelter
File:Eldorado Dredge panorama.jpg, Gold dredge
References
External links
*
Parks Victoria
Parks Victoria is a government agency of the state of Victoria, Australia.
Parks Victoria was established in December 1996 as a statutory authority, reporting to the Victorian Minister for Environment. The ''Parks Victoria Act 2018'' updates ...
'
guide to the Cocks Eldorado gold dredge
Towns in Victoria (state)
Rural City of Wangaratta
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