The Yarloop Workshops are situated in the town of Yarloop Western Australia, where they operated from 1901 to 1978. Originally built by Millers on the site of the first timber mill in the area, the operations expanded to become the support facility for Millers' 26 timber mills and the rail network that connected them. The workshops hand-crafted most of the parts necessary to maintain the equipment rather than experience delays in obtaining parts from the United Kingdom. After suffering extensive damage from Cyclone Alby in 1978, Millers moved their operation to a site just outside the town on the South Western Highway. The site then changed ownership a number of times until it was brought by Bunnings in 1983.[1]
In 1895 Miller brothers built a timber mill (?) on the site and as production increased the need to maintain equipment meant that the place was expanded to incorporate the various machinery workshops until 1901 when the site sole function was for the maintenance of Millers equipment. During both World War I and World War II the workshops were converted to manufacture armaments. In the 1930s the timber industry in the region peaked with Millers operating 26 saw mills and an extensive private railway system to support the mills. The workshops became the centre of the operations employing in excess of 100 people, the workshops included a foundry making the parts as necessary, as part of this an extensive collect of wooden patterns were made and are still retained on site in the workshops.[2]