Yarragon, Victoria

Yarragon is a small town in the Baw Baw Shire in the West Gippsland region of Victoria, Australia. The town lies on the Princes Highway and the main Gippsland Railway line approximately halfway between the major towns of Warragul and Moe. Hills of the Strzelecki Ranges rise over 500 meters immediately to the south of the town providing a spectacular backdrop, while the Moe River and the lowlands lie to the north and east. Mount Worth at 515m above sea level is the highest near peak to the south in the Mount Worth State Park 16 kilometers SSW of Yarragon. Mount Baw Baw at 1563m in the Baw Baw Ranges as part of the Great Dividing Range to the north is approximately 85 kilometers NNE of Yarragon. The township sits at approximately 88 metres above sea level. At the, Yarragon had a population of 1131.HistoryThe town was a centre for dairy farms in the vicinity, as well as logging activities in the heavily forested hills to the south. The Post Office opened around October 1878 as Waterloo, Gippsland and was renamed Yarragon in 1883.TodaySignificant expansion of facilities and businesses along Yarragon's main Princes Highway streetscape since the 1990s aimed at capitalising on the tourist potential of passing traffic has resulted in the town being informally dubbed 'Yarragon Village'.The town has its own railway station on the Bairnsdale railway line. The station is unstaffed and its buildings are 100 years old as of April 2012. the two platform station used to also be home to rail yards and storage for track gangs.