Jim Crow goldfield

The goldfield extended between the localities of Daylesford and Hepburn Springs in the south, and Strangways at its confluence with the Loddon River in the north,[1] concentrated mainly around Yandoit.

Recent, more enlightened attitudes to First Peoples moved Mount Alexander Shire Council in conjunction with Hepburn Shire Council,[4] North Central Catchment Management Authority and DJAARA (formerly the Dja Dja Wurrung Clans Aboriginal Corporation) in 2021 to rename Jim Crow Creek, first applied to the area of Lalgambook/Mt Franklin by Captain John Hepburn who lived there in the 1830’s.

[5] Both Hepburn Shire Council and Mount Alexander Shire Councils voted unanimously in April 2022 to name it, in local Dja Dja Wurrung language, "Larni Barramal Yaluk" (Home of the Emu Creek), acknowledging that the term ‘Jim Crow’ is knowingly derogatory as it stems from international racial segregation and anti-black racism, which was prevalent also in colonial Australia.

Nearly 2,000 miners, many of whom had left the Maryborough diggings, were reported to be on the site in October 1854, though many had little success,[9] and shortage of water for panning and cradling was a problem.

Some of their waterholes in rock platforms of the Creek that they found or enlarged, then covered with slabs to protect them from animals, may still remain, unidentified.