Chiltern - Culture and History

The first Europeans in the area were the party of Joseph Hawdon who was engaged in overlanding cattle to Port Phillip in 1836. He apparently shot a 'black' dingo hereabouts and Black Dog Creek was named in its honour. Consequently, this name was also applied to the settlement when it first emerged.

The first squatters took up land here in 1839 and a bush inn was established in 1844. A few other buildings developed around the hotel, although it was later transformed into a police outpost. As such it was apparently frequented by Robert O'Hara Burke, of the famous Burke and Wills expedition.

A township reserve was declared on the creek in 1851. The site was surveyed in 1853. At around this time the name of Chiltern, from the Chiltern Hills of England, had come into use. Town allotments were sold in 1854.

However, this settlement was abandoned when John Conness's discovery of the Indigo gold lead was announced in 1858. As prospectors poured into the area, a new Chiltern was established around the miner's track which ran parallel to the New Ballarat lead (now Conness St) and along the route from Beechworth to the Indigo lead (now Main St). The original Star Hotel was built at the intersection of these two routes in 1859.

In the first bloom of the rush there were allegedly some ten to twenty thousand living around the town. The local diggings turned up the largest nugget of the Ovens goldfields. However, the alluvial gold soon dwindled and attention was turned to deep quartz reef mines which required the capital of a company. Consequently the population thinned to a manageable level.

The new townsite was surveyed in 1860 although sales of allotments were delayed owing to objections from mining companies. Chiltern was proclaimed a municipality in 1862. Unusually, the first council consisted entirely of representatives from the miners' group.

By 1865 there were about 2200 residents and 400 domiciles. Agriculture and vineyards were under way, there were two steam-powered sawmills and highly profitable quartz-reef mining was ongoing. Buildings included 12 hotels, a post office, a telegraph station, the Federal Standard newspaper office, three banks, a court, a court of mines, five insurance offices, a reading room, a coach office and a newsagency.

By 1888 there were still twelve hotels although the population had shrunk to 1243 and the number of banks to two. Gold mining continued to turn a profit until the early 20th century. The last reef was abandoned in 1911. Mine director Charles Harkin formed the Chiltern Vineyard Company in 1912 to provide employment for those made redundant.

Noted novelist Henry Handel Richardson lived at Chiltern from 1876-77. Short-lived Country Party Prime Minister John McEwen (1967-68) was born here in 1900.