JEPARIT, VICTORIA

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The town is the centre of Victoria's biggest barley-growing district.
Location: 370km north-west of Melbourne; 37 km north of Dimboola. Map
Origin of name: local Aboriginal word to describe a 'home of small birds'.
Brief history: prior to white settlement the area was occupied by the Gromiluk, a branch of the Wotjobaluk tribe. The first European in the immediate vicinity was explorer Edward Eyre who camped at nearby Lake Hindmarsh in 1838 while searching for an overland route from Melbourne to Adelaide. The area which includes the Jeparit townsite was taken up by Robert von Stieglitz in 1846. A rabbit plague struck the area in the late 1870s.
Closer settlement proceeded when selectors, many of them German Lutherans from South Australia, arrived in the 1880s. They changed the course of land usage from grazing to wheat-growing. A village began to develop at this time, leading to a survey in 1883. The town was gazetted in 1889. Australian Prime Minister Robert Gordon Menzies was born in Jeparit on 20th December 1894. Menzies, who grew up here, led the United Australian Party to government in 1939. Menzies was forced to resign the Prime Ministership in 1941, but returned to power in 1949 as leader of the newly formed Liberal Party. He remained prime minister for a record 17 years before retiring from politics in 1966.
Natural features: Lake Hindmarsh; Cat Swamp; Lignum Swamp; Duck Swamp; Ross Lake; Wyperfeld National Park
Built features: Wimmera-Mallee Pioneer Museum
Heritage features: 'Albacutya' homestead