Keon Park

Keon Park is a residential area 14 km north of central Melbourne between Reservoir and Thomastown.

The area in which Keon Park is situated comprised two allotments of Robert Hoddle's subdivision of 1838. The western part became the Merri Lands estate and the other, east of High Street, was owned by Robert Campbell. Both were of about 380 hectares and had the Preston-Whittlesea boundary on their north. The Merri Lands name was carried through to a primary school (1959) and a high school (1958) in Keon Park, since named William Ruthven College.

The Keon Park railway station was provided in 1929, between Reservoir and Thomastown stations.

Keon Park was a residential estate marketed by T.M. Burke in 1925, possibly named after a local property and not, as some sources state, the parliamentarian Stan Keon, who was 14 years old when the station opened.

Whereas Reservoir had substantial residential development by the end of World War II, the housing growth northwards to Keon Park came in the following decade. The Keon Park primary school opened in 1955 and the technical school in 1959. Two others in the east near the Darebin Creek were Burbank (1965) and Keon Park East, later Rosebank (1968-92). The technical school closed in 1992.

Keon Park has a shopping centre near the railway station and the J.C. Donath Reserve with several sports ovals. The reserve was named after a town clerk of Preston City council. Keon Park’s skyline, however, is dominated by the Thomastown electricity terminal substation and an Amcor manufacturing plant.