Tarnagulla is a town in central Victoria,

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

. The town is in the

Shire of Loddon The Shire of Loddon is a Local government areas of Victoria, local government area in Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, located in the northern part of the state. It covers an area of and in 2021 had a population of 7,759. It includes ...

local government area A local government area (LGA) is an administrative division of a country that a local government is responsible for. The size of an LGA varies by country but it is generally a subdivision of a federated state, state, province, division (politica ...

, north west 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 ...

. At the , Tarnagulla had a population of 304. By 2016, the population was 133.

History

European settlement in the area began with the taking up of Tarnagulla station in the 1840s.

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 ...

was first found in the area in 1852 by prospectors on their way to the Korong goldfields near Wedderburn. The discovery led to a

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, ...

, as more than 5,000 miners made their way to the diggings. The settlement created by these miners was at first known as Sandy Creek and was renamed Tarnagulla, after the station in 1860. Reflecting this, the Post Office opened on 13 August 1856 as Sandy Creek and was renamed Tarnagulla on 2 January 1861. Tarnagulla is phonetic meaning of Polish ''Czarnogóra'' (eng. Black Mountain - Montenegro). Name was given by Polish explorer and geologist Paweł Strzelecki. The first miners in the area were prospectors from

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...

followed by many more from other diggings and from around the world. A

canvas Canvas is an extremely durable Plain weave, plain-woven Cloth, fabric used for making sails, tents, Tent#Marquees and larger tents, marquees, backpacks, Shelter (building), shelters, as a Support (art), support for oil painting and for other ite ...

town grew up quickly to service the needs of the miners. In 1853, the first

gold nugget A gold nugget is a naturally occurring piece of Native metal, native gold. Watercourses often concentrate nuggets and finer gold in placer deposit, placers. Nuggets are recovered by placer mining, but they are also found in residual deposits wher ...

s were found near Tarnagulla at Nuggetty Gully with one pair of miners finding 86 lb (39 kg) of gold in a fourteen-day period. Many other large nuggets including one weighing 32 lb (14.5 kg) were found in the area. From 1854, the focus of the miners turned to

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The Atom, atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen Tetrahedral molecular geometry, tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tet ...

mining with the discovery of the Poverty Reef. The reef was named by one of its discoverers, Mr. Hatt, in remembrance of Poverty Bay, New Zealand where he had been saved from drowning by a Māori woman. The Poverty lode was unusual in that the gold was found in large blocks of quartz. Allegedly the richest pocket of reef gold ever found, more than of gold was recovered from Poverty Reef in 13 months from an area 3 metres wide and 120 metres deep (10 ft by 400 ft). The move to quartz mining led to Tarnagulla taking on a more settled appearance with brick and stone buildings replacing the earlier canvas structures. Local government was established in the area with the creation of the Borough of Tarnagulla in 1864. The borough was surveyed in 1864. By 1865, the town had reached its peak with a wide range of businesses operating including 4

hotels A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a refr ...

, 9 general stores, 3 surgeons, a share broker and watchmaker. In September of that year, the Tarnagulla court held its first sitting. Residents of the town included around 1,000 Chinese as well as groups of

Greeks Greeks or Hellenes (; , ) are an ethnic group and nation native to Greece, Greek Cypriots, Cyprus, Greeks in Albania, southern Albania, Greeks in Turkey#History, Anatolia, parts of Greeks in Italy, Italy and Egyptian Greeks, Egypt, and to a l ...

and

Italians Italians (, ) are a European peoples, European ethnic group native to the Italian geographical region. Italians share a common Italian culture, culture, History of Italy, history, Cultural heritage, ancestry and Italian language, language. ...

. Later settlement focused on agriculture with sheep raising and wheat growing established in the area. A

sawmill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logging, logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes ...

was established at nearby Bulla-bul Creek in 1863, and the railway from Dunolly reached Tarnagulla in 1888. New technology such as the use of

cyanide In chemistry, cyanide () is an inorganic chemical compound that contains a functional group. This group, known as the cyano group, consists of a carbon atom triple-bonded to a nitrogen atom. Ionic cyanides contain the cyanide anion . This a ...

allowed rework of some of the tailings of earlier mines. In 1906 the Poseidon nugget, weighing was found at Tarnagulla. The nugget was named after the

racehorse Horse racing is an equestrian performance activity, typically involving two or more horses ridden by jockeys (or sometimes driven without riders) over a set distance for competition. It is one of the most ancient of all sports, as its bas ...

Poseidon Poseidon (; ) is one of the twelve Olympians in ancient Greek religion and mythology, presiding over the sea, storms, earthquakes and horses.Burkert 1985pp. 136–139 He was the protector of seafarers and the guardian of many Hellenic cit ...

'', winner of the 1906

Melbourne Cup The Melbourne Cup is an annual Group 1 Thoroughbred horse race held in Melbourne, Australia, at the Flemington Racecourse. It is a 3200-metre race for three-year-olds and older, conducted by the Victoria Racing Club that forms part of the ...

. The nugget is one of the 30 largest gold discoveries in history. The development of agriculture continued with the establishment of a flour mill in 1873. The mill was operational until 1917 and in 1920 the mill was relocated to Mildura. Gas streetlighting was established in Tarnagulla in 1869 and operated until the arrival of

electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter possessing an electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by Maxwel ...

in the town in 1950. Tarnagulla Magistrates' Court closed on 8 June 1979. The abandoned mining village of Llanelly is located 4 km to the north-east. In 2000 the towns' disused but "magnificent" Wesleyan Methodist church was gutted by fire after ceasing to be a place of worship in the mid 1970s.

Today

Today the major industries in Tarnagulla include agriculture, fruit growing and flax oil production. Golfers play at the course of the Tarnagulla and District Golf Club on Gladstone Street. Tarnagulla is near the box-ironbark forests of the Waanyarra Nature Conservation Reserve, the Waanyarra-Dunolly State Forest and the Tarnagulla State Forest.

References

External links

Tarnagulla Community History page
{{authority control Towns in Victoria (state) Shire of Loddon Mining towns in Victoria (state)