Mt Cole & Mt Buangor State Parks

 

Mount Cole History 

Major Thomas Mitchell, who in 1836 was the earliest known European explorer through the area, named Mt Cole after one of his commanding officers. Very diplomatic. 

Earlier Beaufort gloried in the name ‘Yam Holes’. So called because the first miners dug numerous small holes in the area, desperately seeking native yams to avoid starvation. For a while the post office at this town was called Raglan Post Office – confusing because the town of Raglan existed nearby. 

Source: Forests Notes for Mount Cole State Forest by Darryl Glover June 2004: 

 

The mountain was created 390 million years ago when hot magma pushing up from deep beneath the earth, but failing to break through, crystallised to for granite rock. Daily for millions of years nature continued to sculpt the area eroding the softer sediment, leaving the hard rock protruding from the plains below. 

To the local Beeripmo tribe, Mount Cole is called ‘Bereep-bereep’ translating to ‘wild mount’. 

Following Major Mitchell’s 1836 expedition settlers quickly moved into the area. Timber harvesting with axe and crosscut saw commenced during the mid-1840s, but it was in 1856 that steam powered mills swung into action. By 1889, demand from the goldfields towns for building materials, firewood and railways needing sleepers, saw thirty mills operating within the region until 1904, when all millable timber had been taken. The Forest Commission stepped in and closed the Mt Cole Forest until 1947 when it was reopened for managed timber harvesting. 

Plants, birds and wildlife 

Large native trees including Messmate, Manna Gum, and Blue Gums can be seen on the wetter southern half, while woodland species such as Yellow Box and Red Stringybark grow to the north. Plants such as the rare Mt Cole Grevillea can be found in a few locations, as can native orchids and a plethora of wildflowers. Bird watching can be very rewarding with more than 130 species of birds sighted in the forest. Kangaroos, wallabies, echidna, koalas and possums are also often seen.   

..........There was only one epitah here that was significantly different. It was of Catherine, beloved wife of George Martin Thomas. She was buried with her little son Alfred who had died in 1873, aged 2 years and 9 months. Catherine was aged 36 at her death on 15th January 1887, and her epitah reads:

"She is gone like the flowers, cut down in full bloom

From the sunshine of life, to the shade of the tomb

But death cannot sever, the chain of our love

Or steal the fond hope, we shall met her above"

At the good old age of 85 years, George was laid to rest with his wife and child, and so they sleep together...........Source:Golfields Guide  

      

Raglan 

Raglan,Victoria in 1900.The Raglan School is on the left and the Raglan Hall on the right. Mt Cole is in the background.

Raglan is a rural locality and former gold mining village on Fiery Creek, 8 km north-west of Beaufort and 30 km north-west of Ballarat. 

During 1854-55 gold was discovered at several places north of Beaufort and they were termed the Fiery Creek diggings. In 1855 the town of Raglan was surveyed, a few kilometres north-west of Musical Gully which was the first of the finds which provoked the Fiery Creek rush. The name was inspired by Baron Raglan (Lord Fitzroy Somerset, 1788-1855), commander of the British troops at Crimea (1854). 

After the initial flurry of mining, farming and wood cutting were also taken up. Messmate from the westerly Mount Cole forest was cut in large quantities, and in the 1860s there were two sawmills at Raglan. There were also two hotels and a school (1861). 

About 5 km north-east of Raglan was Chute, also a gold field village. (It was named Carlton until the 1880s). The gold areas generally followed the Beaufort-Amphitheatre Road. Chute had a store, school and Primitive Methodist church (1903), somewhat less than the amenities described for Raglan in the Australian handbook in 1903: 

 
 

 

Agriculture and grazing took over from mining. Raglan has extensive old gold workings to its east and north-east. There are a hall and a public reserve, and the school closed in 1996. 

Raglan's census populations have been: 

census date	population
1871	91
1881	133
1891	86
1921	249
1933	215
1947	201
1954	181
1961	165
2011	407* (and environs)

    Source: victorianplaces.com.au: 

 

Extract of article - The Colac Herald (Vic.: 1875 - 1918) Friday 7 October 1898 - Page 3, trove.nla.gov.au 

STRANGE OCCURRENCE AT MOUNT COLE. 

Word was brought to Ararat on Tuesday by a resident of Mount Cole that a most 

singular, if not alarming, occurrence had taken place at the Mount. It was asserted, 

with a gravity that almost forced conviction, that " a large crack had opened out 

in the old crater, and smoke was rising from it." We are not aware of the position 

 of the "old crater" at Mount Cole, but there are unquestionable evidences of 

early volcanic activity, not only near Mount Cole, but in the immediate vicinity 

of Ararat, igneous rock abounding in both localities. Though it is possible that still 

in its embers lives its wonted fire, the manifestation of volcanic activity in these 

later days would be a phenomenon only to be accounted for by the paradox that it is 

the unlikely which always happens.  

 
 
 

  The Bendigo Independent (Vic. : 1891 - 1918)   Sat 9 Jul 1892   Page 2  trove.nla.gov.au 

 

 
Elmhurst is a rural village on the Pyrenees Highway and Avoca to Ararat railway line, about midway between those towns. It is situated near several tributaries of the Wimmera River, some of which fall from the Mount Cole State Forest a few kilometres south of Elmhurst. The village of Elmhurst, Staffordshire, England, probably inspired the name, as lands fronting the Glenpatrick Creek and Wimmera River were attractively meadow-like. 

Farm selections began in the 1860s, along with timber harvesting. Bailliere’s Victorian gazetteer (1865) recorded Elmhurst as having a hotel, a post office and two sawmills. Sawmills proliferated to eight by the late 1880s, supplying timbers for gold mines and railway sleepers. A school was opened in 1866 in a Presbyterian church, and a Templars Hall was built in 1870. A combined church (1890) and Methodist church (1893) completed the town’s religious buildings. The railway line to Ararat was laid in 1890. 

In 1903 Elmhurst was described in the Australian handbook: 

 

In 1908 the large De Cameron pastoral property north of Elmhurst was subdivided for closer settlement. The additional population strengthened local sporting ties to the extent of a golf club being formed. The course was on private land until moved to a former racecourse site in 1983. 

Elmhurst has two churches, a hall, a recreation reserve next to the golf course, a hotel, a post office and a school (14 pupils, 2014). In 1972 water reticulation from a reservoir in the Mount Cole State Forest was provided, fulfilling a commitment dating from the early 1900s. Elmhurst's census populations have been: 

AREA	CENSUS DATE	POPULATION
Elmhurst	1871	145
	1911	334
	1947	289
	1966	154
Elmhurst and environs	2006	343
	2011	419

Source: victorianplaces.com.au: 

Researched and compiled by Mark Hawley and Andrew Parker 2021