Portland, New South Wales

Portland is a town in the Central Tablelands of New South Wales, Australia. At 2016 Census, Portland had a population of 2,424 people. The town was named after Australia's first cement works.LocationPortland is part of the gateway to the Central West and is located between Oberon, Mudgee, Bathurst, Lithgow, and the Blue Mountains. It is a short drive from both the Great Western and Castlereagh Highways. It is accessed from the Great Western Highway via Wallerawang or from Sunny Corner Rd at Meadow Flat. It is accessed from the Castlereagh Highway via Boulder Road at the Mt Piper Power Station.The town centre has a distinct business district, several parks and sporting clubs.HistoryPrior to white settlement, the Portland region was occupied by the Wiradjuri people. The first European in the area was James Blackman who surveyed roads in the area in 1820 and today Blackman’s Flat and Blackman’s Crown bear the family name.The town of Portland is of interest as an historic mining town, and also as the place of the first cement factory in Australia. Portland really got its start when Thomas Murray selected 61 hectares of land in 1863 and constructed his first lime kiln on what is now the corner of Lime and Villiers Streets. The railway came to Portland in 1883 and the station was called Cullen Siding until 1889. The Cullen Bullen Lime and Cement Company established operations in the village that year. During the early 1890s, the first cement-making kilns west of the Blue Mountains were built in Portland.