Antwerp, Victoria

Antwerp
Victoria

Entering Antwerp
Antwerp
Postcode: 3414
Location:
LGA: Shire of Hindmarsh
State District: Lowan
Federal Division: Mallee

Antwerp is a small town in Victoria, Australia. It is located on the Dimboola - Rainbow Road, in the Shire of Hindmarsh, 22 kilometers north of Dimboola and 356 kilometers north-west of Melbourne.

The area was first settled by Europeans in 1846, when George Shaw and Horatio Ellerman applied for 130,000 acres (530 km2) for sheep grazing. Ellerman named the area after his birthplace, the Belgian city of Antwerp. In 1858 two Moravian missionaires, Reverend Friedrich Hagenauer and Reverend Spieseke, arrived in the area. By 1859 they had built a church, and in 1860 they baptised their first Aborigine.[1]

During the 1880s, the Eucalyptus Mallee Oil Company began operations in the township, distilling eucalyptus oil, which was sold under the brand name EMU.

Today, the ruins of the Ebenezer Mission to Aborigines still stand, but little else remains of the town besides a few houses, a grain silo, and a general store.

The first Antwerp Post Office opened on 25 November 1891 but was renamed Antwerp North in 1892 (and later Tarranyurk) when a new Antwerp Post Office opened in the current location of the township. This office closed in 1990.[2]

References

  1. ^ Robert Kenny, The Lamb Enters the Dreaming - Nathaniel Pepper and the Ruptured World, Scribe Publications, Melbourne, 2007. ISBN 9781921215162
  2. ^ Premier Postal History, Post Office List, https://www.premierpostal.com/cgi-bin/wsProd.sh/Viewpocdwrapper.p?SortBy=VIC&country=, retrieved 2008-04-11