The Picola & District Improvement Group members (front) Joan Theyers, Jeanette Holland, Bronwyn Ryan, (back) Keith Holland and Ross Curtis, standing beside the newly upgraded Picola Heritage Park. Absent were group members Ann Christy, Kerry Bruce and Ian Lubke.
Photo by
Nicholas Spandler
Long before the dairy farms and grain silos that shape the Picola landscape today, the country around this small Moira Shire town rang with axes, bullock teams and the smell of freshly cut red gum.
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The timber that came from the Barmah Forest, cut by Picola workers, was resistant to rot, air, water and insects, underpinning train lines across Victoria.
When the river ran high enough, paddle steamers towed log barges to Echuca.
At its peak, multiple sawmills operated in the surrounding bush, their output so valuable that local sawmillers lobbied hard for a railway line, and when the Numurkah Shire refused to fund it, the community raised the money themselves.
The line opened in 1896, and with it came the stockyards, the grain silo, and the growing town of Picola.
That industry eventually gave way to grazing, cropping and dairying, and now, that full sweep of history has found a permanent home on the walls of Picola Heritage Park.
“We’ve got the history, we just want to share it,” Jeanette Holland said, president of the Picola and District Improvement Group, which has been building the park piece by piece since 2002.
The Picola & District Improvement Group completed the structure only a few weeks ago, including new heritage signboards.
Photo by
Nicholas Spandler
A major upgrade, nearly three years in the making, has delivered a covered walkway, a fresh set of heritage signboards, and two murals painted by Melbourne-based artist Heesco on the structure’s exterior walls.
Ms Holland said the group hoped the upgrade would give visitors a reason to stop and understand what shaped this corner of the Goulburn Valley.
The mural artwork is a nod to the town’s unique history in timber and agriculture.
Photo by
Nicholas Spandler
One mural depicts the town’s timber era, with bullock teams hauling logs through the bush, sleeper-cutters at work on scaffolding and a steam train in the distance.
The other captures the farming life that followed: ewes and lambs, dairy and beef cattle, a farmer stitching wheat bags, horse-drawn harvesting, and an old Bulldog tractor working open paddocks.
None of the human figures have identifiable faces, a deliberate choice so the scenes belong to the whole community, not any single person or family.
Melbourne based artists Heesco completed the murals in seven days.
Photo by
Supplied
Heesco, whose work spans silos and public walls across Australia, completed both murals in just seven days, staying with a local family and frequenting the town’s watering hole, the much-loved Picola Hotel.
The park’s original signboards, installed when the park opened in 2014, had been slowly claimed by the weather.
Signboards tell the town’s story, collating many hours of research by the Picola and District Improvements Group.
Photo by
Nicholas Spandler
The walkway cover and new billboards were funded through a combination of community contributions, Moira Shire Council support, and a federal Stronger Communities Program grant.
The murals were paid for separately, from community donations originally set aside to paint a second silo before COVID tightened the grant landscape.
Picola Heritage Park is on Moran St in Picola, about 30 kilometres north-west of Numurkah.
