Kalkee

Kalkee is a rural locality in north-west Victoria, 20 km north of Horsham. It is thought that the name was derived from an Aboriginal word meaning wood, possibly a reference to the buloke and eucalyptus trees which grew on the surrounding plain.

During the 1870s much of the Kalkee plain was taken up for farm selections. A school was opened in 1877, about when a Wesleyan chapel was also built. The plain has ephemeral swamps, and water shortages caused hardship until a channel was provided with water pumped from the Wimmera River at Dooen. The channel was later supplied from the Wartook Reservoir (1887) in the Grampians.

Kalkee is a large wheat sheep area situated between the Western Highway and the Henty Highway. As the main centres of population have formed on the highways, Kalkee had the bare rural necessities for a social centre – recreation reserve, a church and a school. The last two closed in 1975 and 1992. The Kalkee football (1902) and netball club continues.

Kalkee’s census populations have been: