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It started with Gold
The discovery of Gold at Walhalla in 1862 created great expansion in the surrounding townships as they provided services, provisions, accommodation and horses for the Gippsland diggings. Cowwarr was originally called Forty Second, because the 42nd clause of the Land Act of 1865 was enacted specifically to apply to the region to restrict selections to 20 acres and only for a limited number of years, this was to release land for the production of food crops and an alternate employment for failed gold miners. After much local farmer lobbying, claiming the small plots were not viable, the act was revised in 1869 to allow for selection of 320 acres.
Dairying begins
Dairy farms were developed and The Fresh Food and Storage Company opened a creamery around 1880. In 1897 The Cowwarr Cheese and Butter Factory Co. Ltd. was formed and constructed a wooden building in the main township of Cowwarr and in 1918 the current factory was established near the railway station. (now redeveloped as a Rail Trail from Traralgon)
Architectural Significance Heritage Victoria Listing
The former Cowwarr Butter Factory is architecturally significant as a rare example of an industrial building employing Federation Arts & Crafts design traditions. Built in 1918 it combines innovative end of WW1 building construction methods with the honest, substantial and moralistic features of the William Morris initiated Arts & Craft movement which went on to form the basis of the architectural work of Frank Lloyd Wright and Walter Burley Griffin. The distinctive styling and concrete construction define the building as an extraordinary example of a factory, particularly in the context of the many other cheese butter factories built in Victoria in the early 20th century. Many of the original elements of the butter factory including, boiler mountings, draft channels and brick chimney still remain.
Change
In the 1960's improvement in road transport and the handling of milk in bulk as well as industry change, amalgamation and trade pressures led to the closure of all but the largest and most centrally located factories. The Cowwarr factory ceased operations in 1959. Production activities moved to Heyfield and finally consolidated to Maffra were it still exists today as the Murray Goulburn Co-operative Co. Limited a world leader in dairy products manufacture and one of Australians largest Farmers Cooperative.
Dairying Today
Gippsland dairy industry has been of critical importance to the development of the region and Gippsland farmers are innovators, embracing and developing new industry practice and technology and are regarded as being among the most efficient in the world.
Links to contemporary Dairy Industry
Maclister Research Farm
Robotic Dairy-Austrialia's First
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