Violet Town

History

The Yorta Yorta are the traditional custodians of this land. In 1838 the New South Wales Government surveyed the town site which they called "Violet Creek" — the first inland surveyed town in Victoria. The following year land was put up for sale. Squatters took up land at Honeysuckle Run soon after. The town remained empty in spite of the sale of town blocks until 1846 when the Royal Mail Hotel was opened and then a village began to grow. By the 1860s the town had expanded to include three hotels, a bakery and a school. Buildings went from bark huts to timber construction. Its principal thoroughfares then were Hyacinth, Tulip, Cowslip, and Rose streets. The town was an important coach stop on the Melbourne to Sydney road, as it was at the conjunction of the Sydney road, the overland telegraph and the tracks to Bendigo and the north-eastern gold fields. In 1873 the railway arrived and the village moved closer to the line. In 1895 the Shire of Violet Town was gazetted. In 1994 it was amalgamated with adjoining shires to become part of the Shire of Strathbogie. With its proximity to the Honeysuckle Creek, development in Tulip Street began early with the first surveyed block in Victoria, on the corner of Rose and Tulip Streets. The first hotel was in this site precinct and the first designated crossing of the Honeysuckle Creek was on Baird Street. Until 1980, the Sydney Road/Hume Highway ran through Violet Town, and much early history is centred on this road, now called High Street. Major Thomas Mitchell and his party stopped on the banks of Violet Creek, now called Honeysuckle Creek on his way back to Sydney. In this Australia Felix exploration of 1836 he noted that the swamps and marshes in the area had a profusion of wild violets and named the district Violet…

Most-observed species

• Australian Magpie

  Gymnorhina tibicen (Latham, 1802) · Aves
  929
• Sulphur-crested Cockatoo

  Cacatua galerita (Latham, 1790) · Aves
  779
• Superb Fairywren

  Malurus cyaneus (Ellis, 1782) · Aves
  717
• Red Wattlebird

  Anthochaera carunculata (Shaw, 1790) · Aves
  693
• Galah

  Eolophus roseicapilla (Vieillot, 1817) · Aves
  655
• Striated Pardalote

  Pardalotus striatus (Gmelin, 1789) · Aves
  626
• Eastern Rosella

  Platycercus eximius (Shaw, 1792) · Aves
  591
• White-plumed Honeyeater

  Ptilotula penicillata (Gould, 1837) · Aves
  555

Most recent

• M 3.2 — 2013-06-22
  24 km SE of Benalla, Australia
• M 3 — 2010-05-26
  8 km E of Rochester, Australia
• M 2.6 — 2007-06-10
  12 km SE of Myrtleford, Australia
• M 3.3 — 2005-01-20
  16 km WNW of Wangaratta, Australia
• M 2.8 — 2004-04-12
  26 km ESE of Alexandra, Australia
• M 2.6 — 2003-05-09
  27 km SE of Euroa, Australia