Caloola is a locality in the Central West region of New South Wales.
[4] After settler colonisation, Caloola lay within the County of Bathurst, Parish of Lowry.
[7][8] By 1858, most of the ethnic-European gold diggers had moved on and the field had about 150 ethnic-Chinese miners working there.
[12] Gold in areas nearby, such as Tuena and Trunkey Creek, and improvements made to the roads to Bathurst and Tuena,[13][14] generated passing traffic for Caloola, which in turn attracted bushrangers.
In the early 1860s, the small settlement at Caloola—without any police—had more than its share of mayhem, largely but not only due to Ben Hall, John Gilbert and their criminal associates.
The gang ransacked the store, taking what they needed and willfully destroying the rest, as revenge for the storekeeper previously having given information to the police.
[23] The other four members of the gang, who had raided Calooola, had all met violent deaths, by the end of May 1865.
[33] The manager of the Caloola Creek Gold Mine, in 1872, was Patrick Egan[29] and it seems likely that the village took its official name from his surname.
The public school opened in September 1877 and a board to control it was appointed in November of the same year.
The school was on the western side of Trunkey Road, at the southern end of the village.
[43][33] In 1879, a contract was let for roadworks for a road connecting Caloola with Newbridge, which from 1882 lay on the Main Western railway line.
[12][49] The church and the former schoolhouse and teacher's residence were on a local heritage item list in 2014.