Walhalla was once one of Australia’s richest gold towns, but unlike Bendigo or Ballarat, lacks grand civic buildings. Founded in 1863, it was once resident to about 2,500 residents and accounts talk of over 4,000 gold seekers living around what is now a sleepy mountain town on the floor and sides of a narrow Valley. Today, Walhalla has only twenty permanent residents
As is usual, the initial gold rush saw panning for gold quickly exhaust all the alluvial surface gold. Just as in places like Ballarat and Bendigo – the miners turned to digging mines to find the source of the alluvial gold which has been washed into the local creek. Unlike Ballarat and Bendigo where miners sunk deep vertical shafts, miners at Walhalla initially dug into the sides of the valley in search of the source of the gold, known as Cohen’s Reef, the largest single reef in Victoria. By 1900 the quartz reef had already produced around 55 tonnes of gold (approximately 1.8 million troy ounces, worth around US$790 million in 2005).
Due to the enormous expense of underground gold mining, small claims operated by individuals or small groups soon folded, being replaced by large companies such as the Long Tunnel Mining Company. This company owned the richest mine working the reef, the Long Tunnel, which produced around 13.7 tonnes of gold over its operation between 1865 to 1914. Several Devotion members toured the Long Tunnel Mine on Sunday which proved to be very interesting.
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