Heyfield, Victoria

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Heyfield is a town in Victoria, Australia, with a population of 2,000. It is located 206 km east of Melbourne, in the Wellington Shire local government area. Located on the Thomson River, Heyfield is a gateway to the Victorian High Country.

In 1841 an early settler, James McFarlane, described the district as resembling "a field of waving corn", and called it Hayfield. At some later stage, the spelling was changed to Heyfield.

In 1866, McFarlane's property was taken over by James Tyson, a former member of the Queensland Legislative Council, a pastoralist, and considered Australia's first self-made millionaire.

The town grew up as a stopping point for diggers on their way to the Gippsland goldfields and is today known for its agriculture and timber production. It is the principal source of hardwood in Victoria, and the largest timber mill in the Southern Hemisphere, Neville Smith Timber Industries, is located there.

The district's irrigation water comes from Lake Glenmaggie.

During the Gippsland bushfires in December 2006 and January 2007, the town was used as a staging area by the networked fire agencies (DSE, CFA, Victoria Police, and the Victorian SES).

[edit] Trivia

Mary Grant Bruce started writing her Billabong series of books in 1910 while staying at James Tyson's former house.

The poet John Shaw Neilson spent some time in the Heyfield area in the 1920s, where he wrote several poems and helped in the construction of the Lake Glenmaggie weir wall.