Hopetoun, Victoria

Commercial centre for the local wheat industry.
Location: 92 km south of Ouyen; 61 km north of Warracknabeal on the Henty Highway
Origin of name: taken from a pastoral property, named Hopetoun in honor of Lord Hopetoun, Victorian Governor and Australia's first Governor-General by his friend, farming pioneer Edward Harewood Lascelles'.
Brief history: the town grew round the homestead Lascelles bought in 1878. It was Edward Lascelles, known as the Mallee King, who convinced the Victorian State Government that, with a little bit of help from Melbourne and a railway link, the Mallee country, so despised as useless scrub, had a future as a wheat bowl. The first township blocks were also sold in 1891. Water was channelled from the Grampians to the new settlement in 1899. After the First World War, many soldier settlers were granted farm plots.
Natural features: Wyperfeld National Park; Lake Coorong; Yarriambiack Creek; Wathe State Faunal Reserve, Gama; Lake Brambruk; Lake Albacutya; Wonga Lake; Ross Lake
Heritage features: ' Hopetoun House' (1891); Lake Corrong Station homestead (1846-54), built by Peter McGinnis, the first white settler in the area.