| Building a community |
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Pioneering families
Families had begun to follow the diggers into the valley from the earliest days, and their journeys were, if anything, even more perilous: "Gin cases were strapped on each side of the packhorse, and a youngster placed in each. The risk of a horse colliding with a tree on the narrow bush track had to be taken, but … the mailman was a careful fellow and accidents were few." In fact, it later became a matter of some prestige in Walhalla society to have come into the town as a "gin case" child. But "women who followed their husbands to the fields had to endure much, [and] in them was heroism and devotion of the highest order." Some idea of their hardships can be obtained from goldfield graveyards, where young mothers and their newborn children can often be found sharing common graves. The growth of the town can be measured by the fact that when a Mechanics' Institute and Free Library was opened in May of 1867, it also served initially as a school, the surest sign of the beginnings of a community, and one that was being echoed throughout many other fledgling Gippsland communities at the time. In fulfilling its original intended use, the building also eventually came to be considered the best free library in Gippsland.
The "Live and Let Live" Bakery at the southern entrance to Walhalla |
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Before too 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. In the same year, Elliott's "Live and Let Live" Bakery (above), Walhalla's oldest original building, was opened where it still stands at the southern end of the town. |
Building a community
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© 2003 Walhalla Heritage & Development League Inc. |
