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When there were labour shortages, such as during the two world wars, disparate groups like prisoners of war and so-called “aliens” (civilians who had lived in Australia or other British countries who were deemed to be a security risk) were put to work in the forest.
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One of the early products coming out of the Rushworth forest was telegraph poles. Electric telegraph was introduced into the new colony of Victoria in 1854. For the first time, it was possible to send a message almost instantaneously rather than wait for what was then a relatively unreliable postal
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In a town where the timber industry was important for many years, it is perhaps unsurprising that locals invented things that had a connection to the industry. One such invention was devised by Eric Ollov Risstrom Junior of Rushworth. Eric was the son of Eric Ollov Risstrom Snr, who was
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Risstrom is one of the family names synonymous with the timber industry in Rushworth. Without going into too much detail on family history, because the story is well documented elsewhere, the progenitor of the family in Australia, Eric Ollov Risstrom, emigrated from Sweden. He and his wife Mary came to
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In the mid-1950s, chainsaws were introduced to Rushworth by Maurice Hitchcock, revolutionising the way that work was done in the forest. In the blink of an eye one man could cut far more timber in a day than had been humanly possible in the past. This innovation, in conjunction with
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From the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s, Murray Hitchcock had a contract to deliver firewood to Mooroopna Hospital. At the time, Mooroopna was the main regional hospital for the Goulburn Valley. Rushworth community had a very strong relationship with the hospital in earlier years, with local folk often engaging in fundraising
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For many years the Rushworth forest was the source of firewood for factories in the Goulburn Valley, as well as large institutions like the Mooroopna Base Hospital. The wood was used in boilers to provide steam power. From the 1960s, demand started to decline as industry moved to other sources
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During World War II the Rushworth-Tatura-Murchison area was home to a number of internment and prisoner-of-war camps. Camps 1-4, located around the northern end of Waranga Basin were civilian internment camps while Camp 13 was a POW camp south-east of the Basin, not far from Murchison. Most of the POWs
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Six Hammond brothers were involved in the family sawmilling business established along the Murchison to Rushworth railway line. Father of the Hammond boys, Edward Ebenezer Hammond, and his wife Emma and surviving son Fred, emigrated from England in the 1850s. The family first lived in Brunswick, an inner Melbourne suburb,
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When the railway line was extended to Colbinabbin in 1914, wood mills were opened up at stations on the line. The station at Moora was known as the Erwen station, just up Geodetic Rd North from the present day settlement of Moora. There were mills there, as well as at
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Rushworth railway station was the hub around which the timber industry, and particularly the firewood industry, was organised. As has been noted in previous stories, the line from Murchison to Rushworth was completed in 1890. A siding was constructed at the Rushworth station in 1899, along which the timber mills
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In the early part of the 20th century, there were typically about half a dozen wood mills at the Rushworth station, with others at stations along the Murchison to Colbinabbin railway line. These mills “were driven by steam portable engines of around seven to eight horsepower capacity. In two of