Tarnagulla, Victoria

Tarnagulla is a gold mining town in central Victoria, Australia. The town is in the Shire of Loddon local government area, 183km north west of the state capital, Melbourne. At the, Tarnagulla had a population of 304.HistoryEuropean settlement in the area began with the taking up of Tarnagulla station in the 1840s. Gold was first found in the area in 1852 by prospectors on their way to the Korong goldfields near Wedderburn. The discovery led to a gold rush as more than 5,000 miners made their way to the diggings. The settlement created by these miners was first at known as Sandy Creek and was renamed Tarnagulla, after the station in 1860. Reflecting this, the Post Office opened on 13 August 1856 as Sandy Creek and was renamed Tarnagulla on 2 January 1861.Tarnagulla is phonetic meaning of Polish Czarnogóra (eng. Black Mountain - Montenegro). Name was given by Polish explorer and geologist Paweł Strzelecki.The first miners in the area were prospectors from South Australia followed by many more from other diggings and from around the world. A canvas town grew up quickly to service the needs of the miners. In 1853, the first gold nuggets were found near Tarnagulla at Nuggetty Gully with one pair of miners finding 86 lb (39 kg) of gold in a fourteen-day period. Many other large nuggets including one weighing 32 lb (14.5 kg) were found in the area.