Beechworth - Culture and History

Prior to European settlement the region was occupied by several Aboriginal clans, with the Min-jan-buttu occupying the area around Beechworth. They led a semi-nomadic existence, moving about according to the season. Spring saw them taking advantage of the plentiful water and food of theopen plains with summer heralding a gathering of local tribes near Albury then an ascent of Mount Bogong for the annual Bogong moth feast and a cool high-altitude summer. At the end of the summer they set fire to the high plains to ensure regeneration. Winter was spent amid the shelter provided by the rocky outcrops of the foothills.

A man named David Reid explored the area in 1839 which he named May Day Hills. He built a woolshed which lay behind the naming of Woolshed Creek and hence the later Woolshed Goldfield. The Beechworth goldrush was sparked when one of Reid's former shepherds, named Meldrum, found gold on Spring Creek in 1852. Numerous other gold discoveries were subsequently made and 800 people were in the area by late 1852. Storekeepers at May Day Hills asked the government to lay out a township which it did. The government surveyor named the town Beechworth in 1853 after his birthplace in the UK.

Reef mining of quartz soon replaced alluvial work as the main source of gold with the usage of dynamite leading to the creation of a powder magazine in 1860 which is still standing. Large companies were set up employing locals and the area became one of the country's most productive with about 120 000 kg extracted by 1866. Hydraulic sluicing was comon with an estimated 1400 km of water races in existence by 1880. That same year, a mining company concluded the construction of an 800-metre tunnel extending under the township to run water off at Spring Creek. At its peak there were said to be 30,000 to 40,000 people and 61 drinking establishments on the local fields.

Consequently Beechworth became the central town of the Ovens River goldfields and the administrative centre for north-eastern Victoria. Numerous public buildings were erected at this time, such as a hospital (1856), a hospital for the aged, a mental asylum, a flour mill (1855), law courts (1855) and, of course, a gaol was an early necessity (1853). The first local member was elected to parliament in 1855, the year the first local newspaper was established and the formalisation of the township can be seen with the 1856 layout of roads and footpaths and the prohibition of canvas-built shops and homes. A major employer at Beechworth for over a century was the Zwar Brothers tannery which operated from 1858 until 1961. Beechworth benifited from being on the main Melbourne to Sydney road, although the town's importance declined when Wangaratta received the railway in 1873. The railway arrived at Beechworth in 1876.

Beechworth is said to have had the largest Chinese population in the country outside of Melbourne, with an estimated 7,000 on the local fields by the early 1860s. They worked hard, often intensively working claims abandoned by others, and established market gardens and tobacco growing. European resentment and racist sentiments led to a riot in the Buckland Valley in 1857 which saw Chinese miners bashed, robbed and killed.

The man sent to deal with the disorder was Robert O'Hara Burke who, in tandem with William Wills, led the first expedition to travel north-south across Australia. He served as superintendent of police at Beechworth from 1854 to 1858. The pistol that lay beside his body, when it was found at Coopers Creek, was inscribed 'Presented to Captain Burke by the residents of Beechworth, Victoria'.

Another character with some relation to the town was infamous highwayman, Dan 'Mad Dog' Morgan, who passed through the district in 1860 after breeching his ticket-of-leave conditions. He returned in 1865, bailing up travellers, stations and public houses, and it was from Beechworth that Superintendent Winch sent out all available police in search of the bushranger who was about to be outlawed by an Act of Parliament which gave legal sanction to his execution, without forewarning, by any party.

Australia's best-known bushranger, and arguably the country's most famous figure, Ned Kelly, together with his family and other gang members, also had a lengthy association with Beechworth - principally through its gaol and courthouse (see entry on Beechworth Gaol in the 'Things to See' section).

As the surface gold thinned out sluicing, dredging and deep-shaft mining became more prominent. In 1880 an 800-metre mining tunnel was cut through solid rock beneath the town. But as the shafts became deeper and the operations increased in scale, drainage and water supply issues became a problem. In the last quarter of the 19th century the town declined in importance as the mining activity diminished. Commercial mining of gold finally ceased in 1921 although local creeks are still panned for gold and the area is popular with gemstone fossickers.

The town stagnated until the 1960s when tourism emerged. The National Trust assisted locals in restoration projects. The government also upgraded the mental hospital and training prison and encouraged employment in the Forestry and Lands commissions.

Annual events include The Drive Back in Time weekend which is a vintage car gathering held in February. The Beechworth Golden Horseshoes Festival (which started in 1873) is held in April, the Beechworth Harvest Celebration in May, the Ned Kelly Trial Reenactment in August and the Beechworth and North East Celtic Festival in November.