Mirboo North is Gunaikurnai country on the border of Bunurong country. For tens of thousands of years, the people practised their culture; they hunted, fished, built shelter, understood and celebrated the seasons.
Mirboo North is Gunaikurnai country on the border of Bunurong country. For tens of thousands of years, the people practised their culture; they hunted, fished, built shelter, understood and celebrated the seasons. They had sophisticated knowledge of the land, enabling them to manage the forests and keep them both passable and sustainable through cultural burning and other methods.
Mirboo North was first settled by Europeans in the heart of the Strzelecki Ranges at the small settlement of Baromi in 1877, almost forty years after polish explorer Paul Strzelecki first journeyed through the dense bush of Gippsland to Port Phillip. Even though it was almost forty years later, the area was still only accessible to early selectors and settlers by horseback. The forest was still very thick with tall mountain ash which had to be cleared by the settlers.
The original settlement at Baromi began with Rudolph Benzley, Matthew Brennan, William Scarlett and Robert Bair setting up stores for provisions and hotels for refreshments and accommodation, though the buildings themselves were no more than rough huts with slab walls and paling roofs.
The first slab hut school was established at Baromi 1882 with teacher James Muirhead before moving into the newly constructed Anglican Church with his nine pupils. The first policeman to this area was James Gilfedder.
With the completion of the railway line from Morwell after two years of construction, the first locomotive steamed into ‘Terminus’ on 1st December 1885.
The original Terminus building
With the completion of the railway line from Morwell after two years of construction, the first locomotive steamed into ‘Terminus’ on 1st December 1885.
The official railway opening took place on Thursday 7th January 1886 when a banquet celebration was held in Mr. Hawthorn’s newly erected store with around 130 people in attendance.
Terminus was about a kilometre from the settlement at Baromi, and for ease of access business people began a new settlement in the dense forest nearer to this key facility. Buildings were erected and the town of Mirboo North began to take shape. The first buildings were on the northern side of the railway station in Station Street (now Couper Street) before expanding to the south side calling it Main Street.
The name Mirboo North came much later, it was October 1929 that the name Terminus was gazetted to Mirboo North, the only town on the Grand Ridge Road. The word Mirboo originated from the aboriginal word for kidney.
Another important part of the town’s history was the establishment of the first butter factory in 1893 with two replacement factories built over the years. It was in 1966 when the Mirboo & Morwell Valley Farmers’ Cooperative Co. Ltd. amalgamated with Murray Goulburn and the Mirboo North depot closed in 1974, marking the end of an era. The old factory is now the home of the Grand Ridge Brewery.
The Shire of Mirboo was formed in 1894, an area of approximately 24,624 hectares (ninety-five square miles) of undulating hilly country for dairying, grazing, potato crops and timber production. This Shire was the smallest in Victoria and celebrated its centenary in 1994 prior to Shire amalgamations.
