Emmaville, New South Wales

Emmaville is a town in the New England region of New South Wales, Australia. It is in the Glen Innes Severn Council district.

Emmaville is 872 metres AHD. At the 2006 census, the Emmaville "urban centre/locality" had a population of 247, ^[1] while in the 2001 census it was 303. ^[2]

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History

Tin was first discovered in the area in 1872 and the settlement was called Vegetable Creek after the Chinese market gardens which developed to service the mining population. The population of the area in the early 1900s was about 7,000 and included 2,000 Chinese people.^[3] It was renamed in 1882 after the wife of the then state Governor Lord Augustus Loftus. The name Vegetable Creek is preserved in the name of the local 17-bed hospital.

A school was established in 1875 and it had 70-80 pupils in its first year.^[4] In 1927 the school moved to its present site.

Emmaville today

Emmaville's industries are tourism, agriculture, and mining. There is a Mining Museum which includes a collection of mineral specimens and photographs of the town's history. Fossicking is a local tourist activity.

The town has a general store, two craft shops, a swimming pool, a caravan site, and two hotels.

Emmaville has a school with 60 primary and 28 secondary pupils,^[4] and a hospital with 17 beds.

Emmaville Panther

This is described as "one of Australia's most famous manifestations of a cryptic animal".^[5] It is variously said to be a large black panther or a marsupial lion, and was sighted in February 1958^[6] and on various occasions in the later 1950s and 1960s. There are no native big cats in Australia. One suggestion is that this beast escaped from a travelling circus whose owner chose not to report the escape.

References

Coordinates: 29°26′47″S, 151°35′51″E