HARVEY

DESCRIPTION

 

The area is now the centre of an orange growing industry, and Harvey Fresh produces both fruit juices and milk. Dairy cattle are a major local industry, and lately fruit and vegetable growing have added to the economic success of the area.

Other local Industries include - beef, mining, vineyards; export beef abattoir (Harvey Beef); silicon smelter; and a pigment plant.

There are two campsites which are managed by DPaW, and several private camping sites. Contact DPaW for further information.

 

HISTORY

 

The town was named after the Harvey River (discovered by Alexander Collie  and William Preston in 1829) that in turn was named after Major Harvey, a British army surveyor. (Another source suggests Rear Admiral Sir John Harvey R.N. Commander in Chief of the West Indies Station in 1818 who recommended James Stirling for a promotion.) The town was first known as Korijekup - place of the red-tailed black cockatoo. (No wonder they changed it!)

One of the first people to take up land in the area was Captain James Stirling in 1849-50. He built a hunting lodge on his property and this is now featured in the Stirling Cottage and gardens heritage site. May Gibbs (creator of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie) lived there in 1885. (The cottage that exists today is a replica and is located 500 metres downstream of the original site.)

The first permanent settlers were the Logue family who moved in to the area in the 1850s.

The town was a private development which occurred after the opening of a railway station there in 1893. The initial request to gazette the town site was made in 1926 but this did not happen until 1938.

Harvey had the first irrigation system in W.A. after the Harvey Weir was constructed in 1916.

During World War Two and internment camp was established to hold Italian and German residents who were thought to be a security risk. A roadside shrine today commemorates less happy times. (There were three internment camps in Australia and the one at Harvey housed about 1000 men. An internee at the time was quoted as saying: "I can't say they treated me badly, but they took my business away and, worst of all, they took my freedom".)

EG Green and Sons operated Harvey Beef from 1919 but in 2006 the company had financial problems and was bought out and re-name Harvey Industries.

On January 7th 2016 the town was evacuated due to the threat of a large bush fire. Luckily for Harvey, the fire did not sweep into the town but unfortunately another small town, Yarloop, was almost destroyed by the same fire.

 

TALL TALES AND TRUE

 

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MAP

 

 

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OTHER INFORMATION

 

ATTRACTIONS

 

Harvey Weir, Gibbs Pool, Stirling Dam, Fish ladder, Hoffman Mill, Stirlings Cottage, Museum, Apex Park, Snells Park, Blackboy picnic site, Tea Tree Hollow, Logue Brook Dam,  Wildwater and Slalom Canoe Course, Emu Tech, Italian Internment War Shrine, Harvey River Precinct Gardens, The Big Orange, Harvey Historical Museum, Rally Australia.

 

BUILDINGS OF NOTE

 

Cook's Park farmhouse 1862, Internment camp shrine 1940, Runnymede 1867, Harvey Hotel 1898.

 

ELECTORAL ZONES

 

State : Murray-Wellington

Federal : Forrest

 

OTHER INFO.

 

Postcode : 6220

Local Government : Shire of Harvey

 

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