MURRINDINDI: 70th anniversary of big Eildon Wall
A celebration of the 70th anniversary of the opening of the big Eildon Wall will be held on Sunday, October 25, at Pixies at the Billabong venue.
Stephen Wallace has written After 70 Years … Back To The Wall, a performance which will include as many local people as possible.
Rehearsals of the ‘popopera’ will be held on Sundays, with a last-minute rehearsal scheduled for Saturday, October 24. Details are available from Stephen Wallace on 0458 152 364.
Former workers on the Big Eildon Wall, and their descendants, are being invited to share in the celebration.
The current wall was officially opened by Victorian Premier, Sir Henry Bolte, on October 19, 1956.
The Big Eildon project to enlarge Victoria’s original Sugarloaf Dam began with construction in June 1951 and was completed in 1955, creating the massive Eildon Dam.
The colossal wall enlargement cost roughly £20 million and increased the reservoir’s capacity nearly ninefold.
The area began back in the 1860s after gold was discovered and the small town of Darlingford (named after Sir Charles Darling, Governor of Victoria), near the junction of the Big and Goulburn Rivers came into being.
Darlingford was later submerged in the 1920s, when Sugarloaf Dam was built on the Goulburn River between Mounts Sugarloaf and Pinniger.
Remains of the town still exist under the waters of Lake Eildon today and during the early 2000s it was reported that a drought resulted in the tops of some of the town’s buildings protruding from their watery grave.
Sugarloaf Reservoir construction commenced in 1915 and was finally completed in 1929. It was in commission for less than a year when it was deemed too small and it was modified in 1929, and again in 1935 to increase the storage capacity.
It was still limited in its capacity to meet the growing demand for water in the Goulburn Valley and to protect farmers during drought years.
In 1951, the ‘Big Eildon Project’ began to enlarge the storage to its present capacity (3,334,158 ML) which is six times the size of Sydney Harbour.
During the construction nearly 4000 workers and their families were housed in the shanty township of Eildon which was constructed between 1950-1952.