Pioneers of MoorlandsPrint Page

The cairn was erected at the horseman`s grave as a Jubilee 150 project to commemorate the pioneers of Moorlands.

The tiny town of Moorlands was created in 1906 as the railway service to Pinnaroo passed through the location. The Moorlands School opened in 1913 in private homes and stayed open until 1960 when Coomandook Area School opened. The stone institute /public hall was built in 1923 and it also served as the school as it was rented by the Education Department. But the town never really developed.

Hopes were high for the town when brown coal was discovered here in 1910. The government conducted further explorations in the 1920s and 1930s but never made a decision to actually mine any coal. The quaint Moorlands general store and Post Office was built in 1920 and operated until 1992. The settlement basically disappeared when the Dukes Highway to Melbourne was rerouted in 1980 so that it bypassed Moorlands in favour of a more direct route via Cookes Plains. The railway line to Pinnaroo was closed in 2015.

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Dedication