Tag: Heathcote
Heathcote pronunciation (help·info) is a town in central Victoria, Australia, situated on the Northern Highway 110 kilometres north of Melbourne and 40 kilometres south-east of Bendigo via the McIvor Highway. Heathcote’s local government area is the City of Greater Bendigo and it is part of the federal electorate of Bendigo and the state electorate of Rodney. At the 2006 census Heathcote had a population of 2689.
The first European known to have visited the district was Major Thomas Mitchell in 1836. By 1851 about 400 Europeans lived on some 16 pastoral properties in the area.
Late in 1852 gold was discovered at McIvor Creek. Within six months some 40,000 miners were camped in the vicinity. It proved to be one of the richest finds during the Australian gold rushes, but the gold was so easily found that it was soon largely exhausted and by the end of the year a large proportion of the miners had already left for other recent finds (although deeper deposits continued to be mined for…
