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Fire and flood
Like many other isolated rural communities, Walhalla was particularly vulnerable to natural and man-made disasters, such as the fire of 1888 and the flood of 1891. On 24th November, 1888, a fire that began in a draper's shop destroyed some thirty buildings in the commercial heart of the town, including many shops and the Bank of Victoria and Bank of Australasia buildings, the Catholic Church, the Mechanic's Institute, the Empire and the Long Tunnel hotels, and the "Chronicle" newspaper office. Although a number of these buildings were rebuilt, many businesses never recovered and did not re-open. As luck would have it, in 1887 the Shire Council had voted to renovate a steam-driven fire engine and provide accommodation and a water supply for it, but no volunteer brigade had been constituted in time for the 1888 fire. As a direct result of the fire, a 12-man brigade was formed in March of 1889. The Country Fire Brigades Board took over the administration of the fire brigade in 1892, and by 1899 it had been resolved to build a new fire station. Because land for this purpose was not available in the centre of the town, it was built on the present rather unique site that it occupies, straddling Stringer's Creek.
Walhalla Fire Station and Museum and 130-year old stonework Cold and damp were year-round problems in Walhalla's steep valleys, where in winter, the sunlight only penetrates to the valley floor for a brief two or three hours around the middle of the day. While this climate bred hardy residents, naturally enough it was equally often the undoing of just as many. Snow was no more an annual phenomenon then than it is now, but nevertheless heavy snowfalls of up to six meters or more did occur from time to time, and winters in the mountains could be bitterly cold enough to be fatal, even without snow. |
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Heavy rainfalls and floods were not uncommon, either. Torrential rains on the weekend of 1-2 August, 1891 drowned four people and swept away numerous buildings, bridges and lengths of roadway, destroying, among other structures, the Alpine Hotel, which was never rebuilt. |
Boom town life
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© 2003 Walhalla Heritage & Development League Inc. |
