Traralgon

Traralgon flourished after the opening of the rail line from Melbourne in 1877. Sawmills and dairying were the underpinning of the local economy, and an elegant post office and court house were constructed in the 1880s. Australian Paper Manufacturers set up a mill, north-west of Traralgon in the late 1930s, by which time nearby Yallourn had been built from scratch to house workers for electricity production, based on the huge deposits of brown coal in the area.