Gormandale

Gormandale, a rural village in the eastern Strzelecki Ranges, Gippsland, is 165 km south-east of Melbourne and 20 km south-east of Traralgon.

Originally known as Merrimans Creek, the Gormandale district came under farm selections in the mid-1870s. An early selector was John Gorman, who built a bridge over the creek, giving rise to a locality name, Gorman's Crossing. In 1882 a school opened, named Willung South for about a year; Willung South is about 6 km south of Merrimans Creek. The next year the school was renamed Gormandale, and the post office was given that name when it opened in 1887.

When the post office opened there was also a public hall (1886) and a boarding house in Gormandale.

Clearing the slopes of tree cover in the 1880s-90s supplied a eucalyptus distillery and a timber industry which was of good enough quality for shafts and frames for carriages. Dairying developed and in 1894 the Crossover creamery and butter factory opened. Closer settlement farms came in about 1906 and the factory was enlarged and named Gormandale. The unsalted export butter was branded Gormandale.

Religious observances shared the public hall until a gospel hall was built in 1966 and an Anglican building was brought in from Tanjil South in 1973. Electricity was switched on in 1939 in the hall (rebuilt after being burnt down in 1931).

Many of the hill farms west and east of Gormandale have been re-afforested as part of extensive replanting in the Strzelecki Ranges since the 1970s. Nevertheless, in the 2011 census, dairy farming accounted for 19.3% of employment in Gormandale and environs and other farming 4.0%.

The Gormandale dairy factory amalgamated with South Eastern Milk Products (Traralgon) in 1970 but closed three years later when taken over by Murray-Goulburn.

Gormandale and district has a State primary school (45 pupils, 2014), a general store and post office, a public hall, a community house, cricket, football and netball clubs and a kindergarten. Gormandale's census populations have been: