Mountain Tales: Issue 02

MOUNTAIN TALES 024 Old News from the Dandenong Ranges January 2025 No.2 The Mount Dandenong & District Historical Society aims to collect, preserve and share the rich history of the district. The society is especially interested in the communities of Mount Dandenong, Kalorama, Olinda, Sassafras, Ferny Creek and Tremont. These are the ridgetop villages on the mountain range clearly visible from metropolitan Melbourne. The society welcomes new members with an interest in local history and meets each month. It maintains a small collection of significant local history material. We have some limited volunteer capacity to assist with private research. Many of these stories here have previously been published on the society’s Facebook page. If you would like to learn more, please contact the society’s Secretary via email at mtddhs@gmail.com Olinda Police Station: Old (above) and new (below). Picture Caption: To make your document look professionally produced, Word provides header, footer, cover page, and text box designs that complement each other. This photo of the old Tremont General Store and attached service station adorns the cover of the society’s 2025 calendar and signals just how much the hills have changed over the past 40 years. W hile the new service station has something of the form and shape of the old, about the only real constant is the post box! (Photo: John Schauble). Policing Cop shops old and new The law abiding citizens of Olinda finally brought to heel Many people might think there has been a police presence in Olinda since the days of early settlement. In fact, it’s much more recent. In 1942, then Chief Commissioner of Police Alexander Duncan rejected a call for a station to be built in Olinda as the level of “crime and police activities” in the district meant it was not warranted. The nearest stations at the time were at Belgrave and Lilydale. In 1949, the Olinda correspondent of the Lilydale Express noted: “While we are generally a most lawabiding community, there is no doubt that the presence of a resident police officer will be extremely advantageous, particularly in the summer months, when the floating population is numerous and thirsts are high.” Not to be easily put off, a lengthy campaign waged by the Olinda Progress Association eventually saw a station built and opened in April 1953. The first resident officer was First Constable Douglas Harkness, who transferred up from Lilydale. The original station phone number was Olinda 241. Duties over the first few years would run to accidental deaths, traffic accidents, the occasional car chase, burglaries and the day-to-day stuff of country policing. Within a year a Police Boys Club was formed and was meeting at the Olinda Mechanics Institute, for boys aged 14 to 18 years interested in “tennis, basketball, boxing and wrestling”. The original Olinda police station was located between the shopping strip and the football ground on the high side of Coonara Rd (now Olinda-Monbulk Rd). It was sold in 2009, comprising a three-bedroom residence, plus a station with four rooms, outside facilities and a cell. It has been extensively renovated and is now a holiday rental. The new police station on the Mt Dandenong Tourist Rd opened in 2011. Seesawing priorities Decades ago, before television let alone social media, entertainment for children was all about playgrounds (they’re still popular, we know). In 1951, the Tremont & District Progress Association, formed the previous year to represent the interests of the tiny community up the hill from Upper Ferntree Gully, petitioned council for funds to build a playground opposite the Tremont General Store. This humble installation was finally approved and funded in 1953, with a tiny patch of land made available by the National Park committee of management directly across the road from where the petrol station now stands. There was a seesaw and a swing … and that was about it. (If anyone has a photo, we’d love to see it). The equipment disappeared sometime in the late 20th century when a lot of built infrastructure was removed from the park as priorities changed. Page 1 MOUNTAIN TALES January 2025 No.2 Wild creatures Once bitten, twice shy … or perhaps not? Snake tales from Sassafras As the weather warms, it’s time to keep an eye out for slithery things when you’re out and about. The upper reaches of Dandenongs have never really been a herpetological hot spot. Snakes, like some humans, possibly find it a bit too cool and damp. The most common species here is arguably the lowland copperhead (Austrelaps superbus), followed by the red-bellied black snake (Pseudechis porphyriacus). Both are venomous, but also quite shy creatures. Copperheads are sometimes found on the warmer, rockier north-western facing slopes. In recent years sightings seem to have increased, anecdotally at least. A very pretty specimen was photographed on the old Olinda golf course last summer. Yet in decades living here, your correspondent has seen less than a handful of `Joe Blakes’. So, the chance of being bitten by a snake up here would seem pretty unlikely. The chance of being bitten twice, well … Thomas Turner, 23, gardener of Sassafras, was reportedly bitten by on the ankle by a black snake (identified as a copperhead in some later accounts) in October 1938 while working at a local guesthouse. “The wound was scarified and ligatures applied by Dr J.P. Jones of Sassafras, who ordered the removal of the man to Melbourne,” The Age reported. Turner was injected with antivenin at the hospital and his condition reported to be satisfactory. Remarkably Turner was reportedly bitten again by a black snake in June the following year after he “disturbed a stone under which it was sleeping” (as any selfrespecting snake would be in the Dandenongs in mid-winter). The city papers collectively reported that Turner killed the snake, bit off the top of his finger where the fangs had punctured it, rode his bicycle for two miles to the doctor and then came by bus to Melbourne for further medical treatment. Far be it for us to challenge the veracity of the pressmen’s reporting but needless to say the story “went viral” in 1930s fashion (via telegraph) and was reprinted in newspapers across the land. The further away it got, the stranger the tale became. Never letting the facts get in the way of a good story, the papers noted Turner was variously aged 24 or 18 years and bitten while working in a garden or on a farm. Headlines including “Snake Victim Bit Off Finger Top”, “Self-Help for Snake Bite”, “Bushman’s Fortitude” and “Bit Off Finger End” accompanied the tale as it ricocheted around the country. Depending on your viewpoint, these creatures (the snakes, that is) are either horrid and feared or beautiful and admired. Whatever your view, it is best to give them wide berth and they will cause you no harm. The treatment for snake bite has long since moved on from the days of torniquets, lancing and sucking the wound and applying Condy’s crystals (potassium permanganate). If you are bitten, here’s some useful, up-to-date advice that doesn’t involve gnawing off your extremities. The important thing is to remain as still as possible and have a pressure immobilisation bandage applied to the affected limb asap: https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/snake-bites Illustration: Frederick McCoy & J. M. Ferguson, Natural History of Victoria: Prodromus of the Zoology of Victoria; or, Figures and Descriptions of the Living Species of All Classes of the Victorian Indigenous Animals, Trübner & Co. Publisher, Hamel & Co., Australia. Government Printing Office and University of Melbourne, 1885. (SLV collection) Lookouts Mt Dandenong observatory There has long been an observation point at the northern end of the main ridge of the hills, perched atop its highest peak Mount Dandenong. At 633 metres (2,077 feet) the peak just pips that of nearby Mount Corhanwarrabul (612 metres), home to Burkes Lookout and the television towers. The summit had already become a hugely popular visitor spot by the early 1930s, when the construction of Observatory Road allowed for vehicle access and led to toilets and basic refreshment rooms. Further visitor facilities built over the coming years included a “camera obscura”, which was removed in the late 1960s to make way for the Sky High restaurant (first opened in 1971) and even more carparking. Long before all of this, there was a trig point (more correctly, a trigonometric station or triangulation point) erected as a survey marker. Often, as was the case was the case at Mt Dandenong, these were marked by an installation of stones and timber. The trig point can be dated to the late 1860s but by around the turn of the century it had become popular spot for visitors and along with the stone marker, a shelter was installed. (The trig point now takes the form of a plaque on a pillar inside the Sky High building.) This charming illustration by the artist James Alfred Turner (1850-1908), while untitled and undated, is identifiably a depiction of he old trig point at the summit of Mt Dandenong based on several contemporary photographs. Turner lived at Kilsyth at the foot of the Dandenongs from around 1892 until 1907 and painted many views featuring the hills. Page 2 Untitled, Mt Dandenong Observatory, n.d. taken from a sketchbook, held by the State Library of Victoria. Sources: State Library of Victoria; Victorian Heritage Database Report: Mt Dandneong Observatory, 2009; Shirley Jones, A Quiet Painter: James Alfred Turner, Kilsyth, 2009. MOUNTAIN TALES January 2025 No.2 The notorious Devil’s Elbow below Tremont, still a trap for unwary drivers. (State Library of Victoria collection) A treacherous descent: early motoring in the hills The advent of motor vehicles made the Dandenong Ranges much more accessible. Cars would propel the tourist industry and residential occupation from the start of the 20th century, encouraging the growth of guest houses, weekenders and eventually enabling easy commuting to “town”. Meanwhile, a Sunday drive to the hills would become a Melbourne tradition. Forgotten today is the considerable antagonism towards early motorists. Before WW1, vehicles locally built or imported from overseas were expensive (costing roughly the equivalent of a luxury yacht in modern terms). Their use was largely unregulated in Victoria until 1910. There was also plenty of what would today be characterised as hooning by the well-heeled, often young drivers as they made their way at must have seemed incredible speeds on roads busy with a mix of horse drawn carriages, cyclists, cable trams, horse riders and pedestrians. The first road fatality involving a motor car occurred in East Melbourne in 1905. More adventurous motoring to the hills was no easy matter in those early days. There were few roads into the upper reaches of the ranges that were at all suitable. Village settlement spurred on the construction of access roads in the late 1890s, such as Dewar’s deviation up from Ferntree Gully to Tremont. (Some older locals still refer to the quarry site on the bend below Tremont as `Dewar’s quarry’.) Other tracks followed walking and bullock routes. An early tourist map of the Dandenongs from 1903 divided coach roads into “good for driving” and “roads for walking only”. So, it is interesting that as early as 1907, the Box Hill Reporter noted a public meeting in Sassafras had passed a resolution calling on the local council to either prohibit motor cars from coming up the road from Ferntree Gully or in some other way restrict them. “A very serious accident was fortunately averted only a few days ago. The road is too narrow and dangerous for big motors to pass when other traffic is on the road,” the report said. Inevitably a very serious motor vehicle accident would occur, and the first such appears to have been at the Devils Elbow below Tremont in October 1909. Returning from a Sunday drive to Ferny Creek, Jack Proctor, driving a 12 horsepower Tarrant, failed to negotiate the hairpin bend as his brakes locked and the vehicle containing four adults and two children went over the edge. Only the “heavy irons of the hood prevented the car from turning a complete turtle”, allowing the passengers to scramble out, with only one of the party requiring significant medical attention. The car was retrieved with the assistance of none other than its manufacturer-dealer Captain Harley Tarrant himself. The vehicle’s driver and his brother Charles, who was a passenger in the car, were also prominent members of Melbourne’s early motoring industry along with Tarrant. Just three months earlier local James Breen’s horse and cart had gone over the edge at the same spot. The newspaper posited that work need to be done at the site “as a bad accident will occur – of that there is nothing surer”. The road above and below Devils Elbow would be the site of many serious, sometimes fatal accidents over the coming years and remains perilous for the unwary to this day. You can still see evidence of a couple of the run offs built to aid early drivers whose brakes gave out on the descent. One tragic accident occurred in February 1926, when the brakes failed on a truck loaded with 25 passengers being given a ride down to the train station after a land auction in Sassafras. The lorry careened into an embankment and turned over. Three people were killed and another 10 hospitalised. In December 1933, a picnic coach returning from Ferny Creek crashed at Devils Elbow, killing one person and injuring 32 others, at least six of them seriously. At the other end of the ridge, two people were killed and 12 others injured in February 1924 when a charabanc on its way to a land subdivision sale overturned at Mt Dandenong. The vehicle had some 31 passengers on board. The driver was later found not guilty of manslaughter but several civil actions for damages against the vehicle operator ensued. The explosion in the number of motor vehicles over the first two decades of the 20th century had many such consequences. In 1926, your chance of being killed in a motor vehicle accident in Victoria was the greatest (per head of population) it has been before or since. The road fatality rate increased seven-fold in the 1920s. Sources: Box Hill Reporter 29.11.1907; Age, 2.5.24, 23.2.1926; Weekly Times, 2.12.1933; `Young Men in a Hurry: How a Cyclist’s Death Defined Early Motoring in Victoria, Victorian Historical Journal, (2021) June, Vol.92, No.1, 79-103. Page 3 MOUNTAIN TALES January 2025 No.2 Communications Hold the line please: some telephone tales Telecommunications comes to the ridge in the early 1900s While there is still plenty to complain about when it comes to telecommunications in the hills, it’s a long way from the days when the easiest way to contact someone was by telegram and the phones were only switched on for a few hours a day. Telephone services came to the ridge area around June 1906, when the Argus noted that telegraph and telephone services had been established between Sassafras Gully, Ferny Creek and Olinda. The “telephone bureau” were initially connected to the city through Lilydale. Public telephones were established in these centres in 1908 and links to other parts of the hills were connected over the next couple of years. The telephone had only come to Melbourne in the 1880s and the first automated exchange was still 30 years off. A telephone link between Melbourne and Sydney was opened in 1907. In 1909, the cost of a local phone call from a public telephone in the Dandenongs to another hills township was based on distance, generally 2d for the first three minutes and 2d for every three minutes thereafter. By the 1920s, the fact that telephone operators were taking a two-hour lunch break had become cause for concern. In 1928, the Ferntree Gully News reported that it had received communication from Prime Minister Stanley Melbourne Bruce (who was also the local member) that in order to improve telephone services to Ferny Creek, an additional 30 subscribers at least would be required. At the time, the telephone was only available from 9am to 6pm with a one-hour break for lunch, except for a half-day on Wednesdays. However, the PostMaster General’s department (PMG) conceded an extension to 8pm would be possible. Early problems on the line included limited “bandwidth” based on the number of lines and circuits available and electrical interference. The installation of more trunk lines linking exchanges was a focus around the 1940s and 1950s. Belgrave and Ferntree Gully became major exchange hubs for the hills. While a rural automatic exchange was installed in Ferny Creek in 1949, most subscribers still relied upon a manual connection until the 1960s. Local numbers were generally up to three digits, prefaced by the township name (e.g. Sassafras 1, Ferny Creek 231). Mrs Titchener was one local operator. Manual exchanges replaced local operators between 1964 and 1966. In 1950, the federal government announced the construction of a huge radio telephone tower at Dunns Hill, Ferny Creek to improve services between Melbourne and Gippsland. While nothing to do with local services, it would eventually also relay rural television services and provide a link with Tasmania. The facility is still there but serves a much-diminished role due to advances in technology. Photo: Phone lines on the main road outside `Mountain Rest’ (later `Rostrevor’), Sassafras c.1920. Source: SLV, detail of a photo by Phyllis Bromby. Don’t you know it’s Christmas (beetle)? A sure sign that summer has arrived in the hills. Images from the State Library of Victoria collection, c.1963. A giant tree in Sherbrooke Forest Source: SLV, detail of a photo by Phyllis Bromby, c.1911. Find us on Facebook About the MtDDHS Who are we? Our members are people interested in the collection, preservation and sharing of local history. Where are we? We maintain a small office in and meet at Farndon’s Hall, Falls Rd, Kalorama. When do we meet? On the first Saturday of each month (except January) from 10am until noon. What does it cost? An annual membership subscription of $20 is payable. Contact the Secretary: mtddhs@gmail.com Page 4