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 By Kirsty Mawer
SAN Remo residents and visitors are being invited to bring out their old mementoes, memories and photos in a project to record the characters and culture of San Remo’s past.
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 Kit Sleeman, 2002 Carolyn Landon celebrates Kit Sleeman’s exquisite essays on growing up in Wonthaggi.
 By Libby Skidmore
WE SEE so many signs along the roadsides as we travel. Many are quite useful and some are obvious but some make you think! But do you know where the first road sign in Victoria was placed?  At 10.15am on Monday, February 15, 1937, Wonthaggi was rocked by an explosion at No. 20 shaft that killed 13 men.
By John Wells
A talk given to the Wonthaggi and District Historical Society 54 years ago gives an invaluable insight into the lives of the early settlers.  Every December, Alistair Stirton’s family packed up and moved from Wonthaggi to Inverloch. He recalls blissful times on a beachside block.
 CSS Shenandoah on the Williamstown slip, February, 1865. Photo: US Naval Historical Center David Maunders shoots down the theory that the Churchill Island cannon came from the rebel ship Shenandoah.
 The Churchill Island cannon By John Wells
THERE is a cannon in the gardens of the house on Churchill Island that has caused a great deal of concern in certain quarters. It has also caused me no small worry. In a story I wrote in about 1974 I said the cannon was from the Confederate States of America raider 'Shenandoah'. That was certainly my belief and, indeed, it still is.  Maulboyheenner (aka Timmy), Thomas Bock (1837-1847). In 1841, two Aboriginal men shot and killed two sealers on the beach at what is now called Harmers Haven. Terri Allen relates the events leading up to the murders.
 Georgie McRae, centre, with Janice Coldebella, left, and Bernadette Miles. The Sentinel, July 17, 1990 By Carol Cox
WONTHAGGI’S first librarian, Georgie McRae, held that position for 20 years while at the same time raising five children. During her tenure, the Wonthaggi Library became one of the busiest in Victoria. In fact, its popularity and borrowing statistics amazed previous doubters. On June 26, 1984, the Sentinel reported on an address to the Borough of Wonthaggi by a director of the West Gippsland Library Service wherein she stated: “An 'amazing' 68 per cent of Wonthaggi's residents use its public library. The average is about 40 per cent”. Teaching a young man to read and providing a sympathetic ear on were all part of the job for Wonthaggi’s first librarian, Georgie McRae. Carol Cox reports
By Nell Sleeman
IN ABOUT 1936, a bunch of Wonthaggi men decided to form a militia. They recruited quite a few young fellows and used the town hall for training and drilling and practised once a week, then at weekends they went on training exercises. They had Army uniforms and used to swank about thinking they were God’s gift to humanity.  Georgiana McHaffie The name McHaffie has been synonymous with Phillip Island for more than a century and a half. The story starts with a lady and a lamp.
 The Camp, Spring Street, looking south on the Powlett River coal fields, January 4th, 1910. This photo was taken by Darge less than two weeks after John Price Jones wrote his letter. On Christmas Day in 1909, a young man called John Price Jones, newly arrived on the Powlett River coal fields, sat down to write to his family in Wales. More than a century later, the letter provides a rare first-hand account of Wonthaggi’s beginnings.
It took more than 50 years of debate and struggle to establish Wonthaggi’s first public library. CAROL COX looks back at that struggle in a series to mark the library’s move to
new premises in Murray Street.  Three generations of Terri Allen's family have lived in Frog Hollow, on the outskirts of Wonthaggi.
 High tides recently exposed old tramway rails at the Cape Paterson beach. The 150-year-old rails are the last link to the earliest efforts to mine coal in our area, Mike McCarthy writes.
 Beau Sleeman’s verse gives a fascinating insight into the Wonthaggi of the mid-1900s, a world of backyard chooks, the Friday night town parade of fighters and preachers, and a laid-back miner who was too smart for the managers.
 Wonthaggi’s original bakehouse is under threat, and not for the first time. In 2007, when the following essay was published, the council was considering an application for demolition. On that occasion, it was refused.
 The State Coal Mine whistle has played a central role in Wonthaggi life for more than a century.
 The Wonthaggi mother, teacher, librarian, historian, author and activist believed everything we do is ultimately a political decision.
 The extended Legg and Gilmour families at Cape Paterson. The mining families of Wonthaggi spent some of their most treasured times at Cape Paterson beach. By Carolyn Landon
In January 1958, the Powlett Express interviewed Wonthaggi’s Anna Coldebella, who had just become a naturalised Australian. Fifty-five years later, almost to the day, Anna’s son fills in the back story about her early years in Wonthaggi.
 First passenger train arrives in Wonthaggi, May 1912 This month marks the centenary of the Wonthaggi Railway Station building, now the home of the Wonthaggi Historical Society.
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