Strathbogie

Strathbogie is a rural village in north-east Victoria, 17 km south-east of Euroa. It was named after the Strathbogie pastoral run (1843) which was subdivided from the Seven Creeks run (1838) which is described in the entry on Euroa.

The village is situated on a tableland that is flanked by hilly country to the south-west and the north-east. The whole land system is known as the Strathbogie Ranges, once a notorious hideout for the Kelly gang bushrangers. Strathbogie tableland was occupied by farm selectors in the 1870s. A school was built in 1879 and Methodist and Presbyterian churches were opened in 1884 and 1885.

Dairy cattle and wool growing were the main industries. The Strathbogie butter factory operated from 1894 to 1936, and there was also a factory at Strathbogie North. Milk processing was shifted to Euroa after the main factory closed. The third livestock industry was rabbit trapping, putting meat on the table and pelts into hat factories. Despite years of agitation no railway was ever built to transport farm produce from the tableland. There were localities at Strathbogie North, East and South, each with a small school.

Wool production has become the main industry, continuing a tradition begun by the Forlange and Templeton families who imported German merinos and overlanded them from Goulburn, New South Wales to the Seven Creeks pastoral run. Strathbogie's main street has a statue of a ram, donated by Japanese wool buyers in 1989.

Strathbogie has a general store, a public hall (1955), a golf course (1920), a Uniting (former Presbyterian) church, a recreation reserve and a primary school (part of the multi-campus Peranbin primary college). Its census populations have been: