Adelong. Population 850.
Leasehold pastoral runs were taken up in these region from around 1840. The Adelong station ran from Batlow to Adelong and was taken out by Thomas Bardwell in 1843. He named his station with an Aboriginal word meaning “along the way”. A relative of explorer Alexander Hamilton also had a run here of 50,000 acres in 1837. By 1847 there were eight major runs in the district. The peace of the pastoral industry changed in 1857 when a gold reef was found by William Williams in the Creek on Adelong. The gold rush started later in 1857. A tent town sprang up and diggers tried their luck. Gold was escorted by police up to Sydney once a week to protect it from bushrangers. Camp Street became a hive of activity. In 1858 two partners launched the Adelong Mining Journal newspaper and the bank of NSW opened a branch in the emerging town of Adelong. It was replaced with a grand Bank in 1882. A hotel and general store had already opened in the town by 1858. By 1859 Adelong’s population reached 20,000 people, mostly men, and a good proportion of them being Chinese miners (about 3,000). One businessman ran a general store, a butchery and a sawmill – all needed on a gold field but his store was just one of five operating then. Six hotels were also licensed for Adelong by 1859. The first private school also opened in 1859 followed by a government school in 1860. A later government school as erected in 1878. In 1860 William Ritchie erected the first crushing plant and ore crushing works at the Adelong gold fields. But growth slowed in 1860 as most miners moved to the new goldfield at Kiandra high up in the Snowy Mountains. The first church to open in Adelong was the Wesleyan Methodist built in 1866 but the church still standing on that site was built later in 1886 at 49 Lockhart St. St James Catholic Church was built in 1868 in Wyndham St. and the stone Anglican St Pauls opened shortly afterwards in 1872 in Neill St. St Andrews Presbyterian Church at 81 Lockhart St. opened in 1878. The third Post Office in red brick was built in Adelong in the 1890s. The Catholic Sisters of St Joseph built a convent 1886 and ran a Catholic School which had new buildings in 1906. The town’s Courthouse and Police Station were built in 1874.
The gold mine was the impetus for the establishment of Adelong but it did not last forever as an incredibly rich mine but it did last for decades. In the first two years the two main reefs reduced 60,000 ounces of gold worth a considerable sum of money. William Williams found new reef in 1871 called the Old Hill mine and from 1871 to 1873 he produced 5,849 ounces of gold. As the gold became harder to locate 14 crushing plants were established in the valley. Surface gold was finished but deep veins were still producing gold. Around 9 companies were operating in the goldfields in the early 1870s. By 1872 companies were wanting to buy mine sites. Williams, who had bought a mine for £46,000 soon sold it on for £75,000. The mines were still successful and in 1876 Adelong district mines produced 16,432 ounces of gold. Mining continued for some years but in 1899 one mine reported just 1,362 ounces of gold for 23,000 tons of ore crushed. In 1914 when it closed there were still 240 men employed in underground shafts and others above ground in the ore crushing plants at the Reef gold battery and crushing mill. Most mines in the district closed around 1910. Today the site is heritage sited.
In the Main street is the Apex Park, Beaufort House bed and breakfast built c1929, The Adelong Alive Museum in the old CWA rooms, the Art Deco style Adelonia Theatre built before 1890 modernised in the 1930s, the Post Office, The Middle Hotel, shops, the quaint Adelong Services Club next to the War Memorial, and directly opposite it the former Bank of NSW built in 1882 but the first branch opened in 1859, and the Royal Hotel. A short way up Campbell St is the weatherboard 1874 built Police station and Court room.
