Walhalla, Victoria


 * Not to be confused with Whyalla

Walhalla is a small town in Victoria, Australia, founded as a gold-mining community in early 1863 and at its peak home to around 2,500 residents. Today, the town has a population of less than 20 permanent residents, though it has a large proportion of houses owned as holiday properties. It attracts large numbers of tourists and is a major focus of the regional tourism industry. The town's name is taken from an early gold mine in the area, named for the German hall of fame, the Walhalla temple (Valhalla from Norse legend).

Geography
Walhalla is located in South-East Australia, in the eastern Victorian region of Gippsland, about 180 kilometres from the state capital Melbourne. It is located in the Great Dividing Range, in the steep Stringer's Creek valley, approximately four kilometres upstream of the creek's junction with the Thomson River. The area around the town is designated as an historic area, adjoining the Baw Baw National Park.

Owing to the confined space in which the town finds itself, the majority of buildings are located along one main street which follows the creek through the valley until it splits into two branches at the northern end of the town centre. In the late nineteenth century the town also sported a number of suburbs, situated on the mountain peaks above the valley.

Discovery of Gold
The history of Walhalla is closely linked to the history of gold in Victoria. The first gold had been found in Victoria in 1851, leading to the Victorian gold rush. By 1859 prospectors had pushed far east of Melbourne into the trackless wilderness of the Great Dividing Range. Major gold strikes on the Jordan River encouraged other prospectors to follow the nearby Thomson River in their search for the valuable metal.

A group of prospectors who had been exploring in creeks flowing into the Thomson River valley found gold sometime during late December 1862 or early January 1863. A claim was pegged out and a member of this group, former convict Edward Randel, registered the claim at the outpost town on Bald Hills on 12 January under his assumed name, Edward "Ned" Stringer. Although he was presented with a monetary reward of £100 for his discovery, Stringer was unable to capitalise on his finds, dying in September 1863. Although the settlement was soon rechristened Walhalla after an early mine, the creek running through town still bears his name.

The rush that inevitably followed news of this find was slowed to some extent by the goldfield's remote and inaccessible location, but many miners soon found their way there. In February 1863, John Hinchcliffe discovered an immensely rich quartz reef in the hill just above the creek, which he named Cohen's Reef, after a storekeeper at Bald Hills.

Mining Operations
Gold panning and related techniques quickly exhausted all the alluvial (surface) deposits. By late 1863 mining operations began as prospectors sought and then followed the underground veins of gold. At Walhalla this could mean tunnelling into the steep valley walls as well as the more traditional digging downward.

The vast majority of gold extraction from Walhalla centred around Cohen's mine, the largest single mine in Victoria. By 1900 the mine had already produced around 55 tonnes of gold (approximately 1.8 million troy ounces, worth around US$790 million in 2005).

Due to the enormous expenses of underground gold mining, small claims operated by individuals or small groups soon folded, being replaced by large companies such as the Long Tunnel Mining Company. This company owned the richest mine working the reef, the Long Tunnel, which produced around 13.7 tonnes of gold alone over its operation between the years 1865-1914.

The crushing machinery used to extract the gold from the quartz-based ore required large amounts of energy, supplied largely by wood-burning steam engines. The need for fuel wood led to the hills being denuded for some considerable distance around town, timber tramways bringing freshly-cut timber for the boilers. The associated costs of bringing wood from further and further away were a key factor in the economic problems which eventually ended mining in Walhalla.

Walhalla's Boom Period (1863-1900)
By late 1863 there had been more finds made nearby at Happy-Go-Lucky, three kilometres from Stringer's Creek, and at Cooper's Creek, where copper was later to be discovered in even greater abundance. By March 1864, Walhalla had a weekly mail service from Toongabbie, and the Walhalla Post Office was opened on 22 August 1864 (known as Stringer's Creek until 1868). Happy-Go-Lucky had a post office open from 1865 until 1916, as did Cooper's Creek from 1868 until 1893.

The first hotel, the Reefer's Arms, was opened in September 1863. In time, there were more than a dozen hotels, breweries and an aerated waters factory. A branch of the Bank of Victoria was opened in September 1865, and a branch of the Bank of Australasia was opened in February 1866. Shopkeepers, publicans and other traders built the town up quickly in support of the rush.

By May 1866, the township of Stringer's Creek had been surveyed and renamed Walhalla, after one of the most prosperous mines then working. Most of the first lots of township land were sold to the already-resident householders. That year saw a church building was erected for the Wesleyan Church, and establishment of a Police reserve and Court of Petty Sessions.

The growing number of families in the area saw the Mechanics' Institute and Free Library also serving as a school when it opened in 1867. Before long, Walhalla could boast fraternal societies, a debating club, and (briefly at least) a chess club, choral union and dramatic club. By January 1870, the Walhalla Chronicle newspaper was being published, and by December of the same year, a two-acre (.8 ha) site had been gazetted for State School No. 957, which had taken its first enrolments in 1868.

A self-appointed "Council of Ten" sought registration as a Borough in 1869, but dissolved without the necessary public support for rating the town's properties before it could accomplish much more than commissioning the construction of the stone retaining wall that still stands today in the centre of town. A Borough was eventually proclaimed in late 1872, and by 1878 was able to successfully agitate with the state government for the completion of the first section of the present main road from Moe. By the end of 1879, Walhalla had daily coach services connecting it to the railway line at Moe to the south and to Traralgon to the east, and its isolation had been considerably reduced.

The Long Tunnel Company introduced both electricity (1884) and the telephone (1891) into the mine. Although Walhalla briefly led the world in having two electric street lights in 1884, this service was never extended further into the town. But the community continued to grow, with houses and gardens lining the hillsides along the valley, to a peak population of more than 2,000 with more than that many again living in the surrounding mountain-top "suburbs" of Maiden Town, Mormon Town and Happy Go Lucky. Sporting activities such as cricket and football clubs, with a cricket ground being created through levelling the top of a nearby hill as no other flat land was available.

Poverty Point
The Italian community made a substantial contribution to the development of Walhalla, working a number of jobs including mine managers, wood cutters and splitters, farmers, miners and mine labourers, merchants and builders. The first Italian residents to settle down in the area came in 1873, when a Mr. Pietro Bombardieri opened a tram station at the bottom of Little Joe Hill. They quickly proved themselves hardy and resourceful countrymen, particularly with their farming skills, and by 1882 were represented in the town's business community when Anthony Simonin opened the Alpine Hotel. Their two neighbourhoods, one extending along the Long Tunnel Extended tramway to the north, and the other in the southern end of town, peaked around 1910.

The wood cutters and splitters among them would set up camp in bark huts in close proximity to the area they were working, and it seems they rarely came into town. Around the turn of the century several of these families took up land at a remote station along the Thomson River to the north west, which was called Poverty Point.

The End of Mining and years as Ghost Town (1910-80)
After many years of lobbying from business interests, the Victorian government eventually agreed to the construction of a rail line into town. The line was completed into Walhalla in 1910, the last of four narrow gauge (2' 6") railways built by the Victorian Railways. The small tank engines which operated were 2-6-2 and were interchanged between the four lines. The six remaining locomotives are owned by Puffing Billy Railway near Melbourne—five of which are preserved and operating. Branching from the main Gippsland line at Moe, the Walhalla line crossed hilly farming country, until it reached the town of Erica where it entered heavily mountainous territory, crossing the Thomson River by means of a large steel and concrete bridge then snaking up Stringer's Creek Gorge over a track featuring ledges blasted from sheer rock faces, dry stone walls built rising from the creek bed, and six timber trestle bridges and brackets within the last few hundred metres into town.

It was hoped that the railway would bring new life back into the community, however gold mining was already becoming largely unprofitable and the last of the major mines closed in 1914. With the disappearance of the main industry in town, the bulk of the population soon left. The Shire of Walhalla was incorporated into the neighbouring Shire of Narracan in 1918.

One of the railway's main uses became the removal of old buildings out of town, with the original railway station being relocated in 1938 to Hartwell in suburban Melbourne. In 1944 the section from Platina to Walhalla was closed, with the small copper and lime producing settlement of Coopers Creek using Platina as a supply point until the section of line between Platina & Erica closed in 1952. The service from Moe to Erica continued to service the farming and timber industries of the area, but it gradually decreased in patronage, until it too was closed in 1954. The line was dismantled late in 1958.

Until the growth of the tourist industry in the 1970s and 80s, Walhalla continued on as a ghost town for most of the twentieth century. Several major public buildings including the Mechanics Institute and Star Hotel were destroyed in two fire events in 1944 and 1951 and a number of buildings were destroyed without being rebuilt. The school closed in 1965 and further fires, floods and neglect slowly chipped away at the remains of the town.

Walhalla in the present day


Since around 1980, Walhalla has experienced something of a renaissance with a booming tourist industry and the restoration or reconstruction of numerous historical buildings in the town, including the Star Hotel, Mechanics Institute and reconstruction of the Thomson–Walhalla section of the former narrow-gauge railway.

Following amalgamation of local government in Victoria in 1994, the Walhalla and Erica/Rawson areas were placed under the control of the distant Baw Baw Shire at Warragul, 80km to the west. Despite the much closer proximity and strong historical, social and economic linkages to the neighbouring Latrobe Valley cities of Moe, Morwell and Traralgon, the then Kennett Liberal/National Coalition Government elected to place Walhalla in Baw Baw.

In 1991, a group of interested parties formed a taskforce to investigate reconstruction of the Walhalla railway as a tourist attraction, something which had been unsuccessfully attempted on at least one other occasion previously. Work by the newly-formed Walhalla Goldfields Railway commenced in 1993 at the former Thomson Station site, situated next to the Thomson River immediately before the bridge. With the restoration of the Thomson River Bridge, trains began to take tourists back up the Stringer's Creek Gorge, with a temporary terminus being created at Happy Creek due to the need for reconstruction of the timber trestle bridges completing the journey into town.

This terminus was the end point for tourist trains from Thomson Bridge from 1996 until 2002, when the line was opened through to the old station site at Walhalla. The current station building is an exact replica of the original, although the yard layout is considerably different owing to a section of the former station's location having been covered by earlier road deviation works of the main road into Walhalla.

In December 1998, Walhalla became the last mainland community in Australia to be connected to the electricity grid, although some other towns don't have electricity yet, such as Licola nearby.

Several significant attempts have been made resurrect commercial gold mining in the Walhalla area, with Walhalla Resources and Goldstar Resources investing significant amounts in the 1980s and 2002+ respectively. Both companies hoped to use modern mining techniques to access gold bearing ore that was not economically winnable in the town's gold era. In 2008, GoldStar was well advanced to obtaining a mining licence, but the company folded in early 2009 due to lack of funds, in part caused by the Global Financial Crisis. The company was then refloated as Orion Gold NL with a new management team and has adopted a less aggressive approach to restarting gold mining in and around Walhalla.

Walhalla has been impacted by major fire events in 2005, 2006 and 2009 although the town proper has not sustained any damage.

Landmarks and tourist information
As well as historical buildings, the township features many mines and mineshafts and the mountainous terrain is popular with hikers and bushwalkers. It is the starting point for the 650 km Australian Alps Walking Track, which continues to near Canberra. Walhalla also features many camping grounds, although camping is not permitted within 50 m of Stringers Creek, as the water is not fit for drinking.

The current railway station is an exact replica built to the original Victorian Railways plans of the original station building (now located in the Melbourne suburb of Hartwell), although the interior is different to the original configaration. It is situated on the opposite side of the station yard from its original location due to the main road into Walhalla having been widened after the railway closed. Train rides are operated by the Walhalla Goldfields Railway over the restored section between Walhalla and the Thomson.

The Walhalla Fire Station was built straddling Stringers Creek and is now open to the public as a museum. It was totally reconstructed in the early 1960s after many years of neglect and the structure seen today has been rebuilt from the floor up.

The Band Rotunda was built at the junction of the left- and right-hand branches of Stringers Creek in 1896, commissioned by the Mountaineer Brass Band, who held a competition for its design. Two hotels were situated opposite the Band Rotunda, the Star Hotel on the north side of the creek fork, and the Grand Junction Hotel on the south side. The original Star Hotel was burnt down in a bushfire in 1952, but reconstructed in 1999 with a recreation of the original facade.

Windsor House was built by German Johannes Gloz between 1878 and 1888 from around 90,000 handmade bricks, the only brick residence in the town. Gloz maintained a vineyard on the slope above building, producing around 900 bottles of Riesling in the year 1880. The building is currently a bed and breakfast.

Situated on top of the hill immediately to the north-east of the junction of the east and west branches of Stringers Creek is the Walhalla Cricket Ground, approximately a 45-minute hike from the valley floor.

The Long Tunnel Extended Mine
Long Tunnel Extended Gold Mine (LTEM) was one of the richest mines of Walhalla. The main gold-bearing reef in Walhalla is called Cohens reef. The LTEM mine was started by Hercules United Gold Co. in 1863. After eight years, the company collapsed after not finding any gold. The mine was then taken over by the Long Tunnel Extended Company in 1871. They looked in the opposite direction and found a remunerating part of the reef. This mine soon became the second most productive mine in the area (after the Long Tunnel) and in total produced 13,695 kg of gold until it closed in 1911. Overall, the Long Tunnel Extended mine was Victoria’s 5th largest gold mine during the colonial era. Today it is operated by the Walhalla Board of Management Incorporated on behalf of the people of Victoria as a tourist attraction. Underground tours are conducted daily. The mine’s 8.5 kilometres of underground workings extended to a depth of 923 metres below the machinery chamber which in turn is some 150 metres below natural surface. The tour takes visitors 300 metres into the huge underground machinery chamber hewn from the solid rock over a century ago. Old mining methods are discussed and a large outcrop of the famous Cohens Line of Reef is exposed in the mine.

Notable residents
William "Barlow" Carkeek, Australian Test Cricketer, was born in Walhalla on 17 October 1878.