[3] Walhalla is located in South-East Australia, in the eastern Victorian region of Gippsland,[5] about 180 kilometres from the state capital Melbourne.

Although his party were later posthumously presented with a monetary reward of £100 for the discovery, Stringer was unable to capitalise on his finds, dying in September 1863.

Access to the creek was an ongoing problem in the town's early days owing to the goldfield's remote and inaccessible location.

This company owned the richest mine working the reef, the Long Tunnel, which produced over 30 tons[clarification needed] of gold alone over its operation between the years 1865 and 1914, and paid £1,283,000 in dividends to its shareholders.

By January 1870, the Walhalla Chronicle newspaper was being published, and by December of the same year, a two-acre (0.8 ha) site had been gazetted for State School No.

A Borough was eventually proclaimed in late 1872, and by 1878 was able to successfully agitate with the state government for the completion of the first section of the present main road from Moe.

By the end of 1879, Walhalla had daily coach services connecting it to the railway line at Moe to the south and to Traralgon to the east, and its isolation had been considerably reduced.

The first Italian residents to settle down in the area came in 1873, when Pietro Bombardieri opened a tram station at the bottom of Little Joe Hill.

They quickly proved themselves hardy and resourceful countrymen, particularly with their farming skills, and by 1882 were represented in the town's business community when Anthony Simonin opened the Alpine Hotel.

[13] The wood cutters and splitters among them would set up camp in bark huts close to the area they were working, and it seems they rarely came into town.

Around the turn of the century several of these families took up land at a remote station along the Thomson River to the north west, which was called Poverty Point.

After many years of lobbying from business interests, the Victorian government eventually agreed to the construction of a rail line into town.

Branching from the main Gippsland line at Moe, the Walhalla line crossed hilly farming country, until it reached the town of Erica where it entered heavily mountainous territory, crossing the Thomson River by means of a large steel and concrete bridge then snaking up Stringer's Creek Gorge over a track featuring ledges blasted from sheer rock faces, dry stone walls built rising from the creek bed, and six timber trestle bridges and brackets within the last few hundred metres into town.

On 10 March 1942 a Curtiss P-40 Warhawk of the United States Army Air Force flown by Captain Joseph P McLaughlin crashed near Walhalla on a flight from Canberra to Laverton.

In 1991, a group of interested parties formed a taskforce to investigate reconstruction of the Walhalla railway as a tourist attraction, something which had been unsuccessfully attempted on at least one other occasion previously.

not really being interested, and the then town population being concerned that power poles and wires in the main street would ruin the heritage look and feel of Walhalla.

The privatisation of electricity in the mid-1990s provided the opportunity for Walhalla to be reconsidered for connection with Eastern Energy (owned by TXU) undertaking a feasibility study.

A total of 6,940 metres of cable was laid from Rawson; this is under half the road distance and it cost $640,000 to connect Walhalla to the grid.

In 2008, GoldStar was well advanced to obtaining a mining licence, but the company folded in early 2009 due to lack of funds, in part caused by the Financial crisis of 2007–08.

[citation needed] Phil Mouritz, the owner of the [then] Walhalla Lodge Hotel was a councillor for the Shire of Narracan in the mid 1960s.

More firefighting resources were rushed to Walhalla as numerous spot fires started on the east and west sides of the valley.

One cottage was lost in Walhalla [on the western hillside north of the Long Tunnel Extended Mine], and five buildings were destroyed in Maidentown.

The community had campaigned for almost ten years to get mobile phone coverage into the valley which posed a number of technically difficulties due to the steep topography.

Major flood damage occurred following storms on the night of 9/10 June, 2021 when 204 mm of rain fell in a 12 hour period.

It is on the opposite side of the station yard from its original location because the main road into Walhalla was realigned over the culvert across Stringers Creek in the 1960s.

The Long Tunnel Extended Mine is open daily for tours underground to view the original gold workings, Cohens line of reef and the impressive machinery chamber carved out of the mountain.

Throughout the town, there is a Heritage Walk with over 30 interpretive signs that include photos and text explaining the various sites and buildings of the gold era.

The American actor Patrick Swayze visited Walhalla in his youth, where he enjoyed exploring the country side and the local history.

Situated on top of the hill, immediately to the north-east of the junction of the east and west branches of Stringers Creek is the Walhalla Cricket Ground, approximately a 45-minute return hike from the valley floor.

The tour takes visitors 300 metres into the huge underground machinery chamber hewn from the solid rock over a century ago.