In 1917, a huge skeleton was unearthed near Tarwin Lower, causing great astonishment among the locals.

Everyone remembers the smile. That and the Tuscan villa Vic Benetti built in Wonthaggi when he was a young bachelor.

The rescue station looked set to go the same way as Number 5 mine brace ... until a determined crew stepped up to save it for the community. By Carolyn Landon

THE recent closure of the Nobbies Centre due to structural damage is the latest twist in a long saga that includes mini tornados and multi-million-dollar court battles.

When author Christine Dineen related a story of the first French Island ferryman, his daughter happened to be in the audience and told how she was named after the ferry.

Fishing yarns from the Bunurong Coast, by Rees Quilford

The Plaza Arcade played an unlikely role as a drill hall in the Second World War.

IT WOULD be easy to mistake them for a bunch of ladies who lunch, but you are looking at a group of revolutionaries.

The Cowes Jetty Goods Shed has worn many hats over the years. It now sits vacant, awaiting its next transformation.

On 11 November, as always, Kongwak’s school children observed one minute’s silence and laid their poppies at the memorial cairn in this Valley of Peace.

How Roy Grounds tried to help Wonthaggi out of the doldrums.

Just 10 weeks to lay the railway line from Woolamai to Wonthaggi sounds incredible. What’s more, most of the work was done by pick and shovel, writes Carolyn Landon.

A future prime minister, a dean of medicine with a dark secret and a brutal superintendent all play a role in The Killings at Newhaven but, for all the intrigue, author Joe Fairhurst never forgot that at its heart are two frightened young boys who died ho

They worked hard in Wonthaggi’s early days and they partied just as hard, writes Carolyn Landon.

For almost a century, Phillip Island's main crop was a coffee additive. By Pamela Rothfield

It’s not just the objects in the Wonthaggi Museum that intrigue but the stories that come with them, writes Mark Robertson.

How one of the world’s biggest steel rigged ships came to grief on Phillip Island’s rugged south coast. By Pamela Rothfield

It only takes one teacher to change a life, and Bruce Phillips was lucky enough to find several in his Wonthaggi school years.

Dennis Leversha’s experience as a stage scenery painter stood him in good stead when he began painting the extraordinary murals that tell Wonthaggi’s history. By Carolyn Landon

With a glamorous new hotel to rise on the site of the Isle of Wight Hotel, Pam Rothfield looks back at its predecessors.