Yalca

Yalca is a rural district in north-central Victoria, 50 km east of Echuca and 15 km north-east of Nathalia. Yalca North is on the Murray Valley Highway.

It is thought that the name Yalca derived from an Aboriginal word describing the meeting of muddy with clear waters.

Settlement activity at Yalca occurred during the late 1870s with both farm selections and timber harvesting for railways. The Yalca cemetery was gazetted in 1879, and three schools carrying the name Yalca were opened during 1880-87. A Wesleyan church was opened in 1881.

In 1894 or thereabouts a small village settlement was established at Yalca and, although unsuccessful, it apparently was the forerunner of closer settlement farms in the Yalca district. Until 1920 the Victorian municipal directory described Yalca as a dairying district, and after then as agricultural, a realisation that conditions were not optimal for small dairy holdings. Yalca North was the northern limit of water channels from the Murray River irrigation system.

Yalca North became a community centre with the recreation reserve but, after 1910, with no school. There are a Uniting church and a CFA station. Yalca South’s school continued until 1993 when it was combined with the school at Waaia.

The Yalca Fruit Trees Nursery specialises in heritage fruit trees and dwarf fruit tree varieties.

Yalca district’s census populations have been: