About this Project
Compiled by Bob
Padula, OAM, of Melbourne, this is a free on-line work, containing 32 chapters, which brings together
hundreds of heritageimages, maps and drawings.
It 's supported by many of the author's personal photographs, dating back to 1951, depicting the evolution and development of the Warburton Forests, 66 km east
of Melbourne, Victoria, and in particular its timber industry, between 1853
The work includes descriptive text, location maps, sound and video, identifying the actual sites of many of the sawmills, as far as can be reasonably
determined, and linking these to the present-day environment.
General descriptive information about the history of important locations is also given.
author maintains a continuing interest in bushwalking and touring in the Warburton Forests. He
also has a personal interest in the Forests - his mother and maternal grandmother jointly managed a guest-house in the Powelltown
area in the mid-1920s, which provided accommodation for timber workers, prior to the disastrous fires of 1925 /1926.
He is a member of the Australian Light Railway Research Society, Bushwalking Victoria, and the Great Dividing Trail Association.
Much of the content of this Study is based on his bushwalking forays into the forest regions, in investigating historical
sites and locations, some of which are over 100 years old.
Each major theme in this Study has its own Chapter, accessed from the Navigation Bar on each Page.
The Chapters are arranged in chronological order, where appropriate.
images are thumbnailed. Clicking any
image will produce a full-sized display in a new browser window.
There is a Search Engine at the top of this page!
This will take the reader to a new window displaying the locations in this site for the search query.
This website requires the following
(or similar). The site is optimised for Internet Explorer 9 - the use of other browsers may not yield
satisfactory results. Cookies must be enabled. Font sizes may be changed by the user to suit individual viewing preferences.
Many images are out-of-copyright and sourced to publicly available sites on
the Internet - accreditation is not given. A listing of principal research sources used may be found in
the Bibliography. Photographs created by the author are indicated accordingly. The Study is listed under a Creative Commons License.
Targeted adverts are displayed on the site via AdSense.
This Project is published in September 2012 - it is a once-only Study and
will not be updated.
your journey through the Forests!