100 years ago
1 June 1922
The Rubbish Tip
For years and years, the question of the rubbish tip in the centre of the shire of Dandenong is periodically before the council. It has been “moved” and “moved” again. Of course, no one is keen about having the tip in their vicinity, and the trouble is that it has always been located too close to thickly populated areas. Its present position, opposite the High School, on the main road, on the approach to the town is absurd. When the tip is next “moved” it should be to a situation further from the town, and it certainly does not warrant such prominence as is given to it at the present time.
50 years ago
30 May 1972
Dogs ‘killed three sheep’
A resident of James St Dandenong has warned neighbours of killer dogs “lurking in the vicinity.”
The resident said that just before midnight dogs got into the backyard of her home and killed two sheep and a lamb. The resident said she thought the dogs had jumped the front or side fence. Her husband was awakened by the commotion but got out of bed too late to save the sheep. The resident said other neighbours had also lost sheep.
20years ago
27 May 2002
Show Stopper
Dandenong Agricultural and Pastoral Society is in “dire straits” with the future of this year’s show in doubt. Two successive rain-hit shows combined with soaring public liability insurance premiums has the society on the financial brink. Society President John Follett, who has been associated with the show for more than 45 years, said: “If you look back through the history of the society it has been in similar position before and traded out of it to the degree that it’s still going after 140 years. Ultimately, it will depend on the support of the community if we are to survive this year and into the future.”
5 years ago
29 May 2017
Heart is in the Home
Faye Crawford has called the same Dandenong house ‘home’ for almost 80 years. But now the last of 17 siblings is leaving the simple house at 49 James Street and another part of Old Dandenong is likely to be demolished and replaced with townhouses. Ms Crawford, 79, moved into the two-bedroom home in James St in 1940 at the age of three, the youngest of 17 children. “They’ve all passed away now, my siblings are gone,” she said. “We slept out the back in the chook sheds, all us kids.” Rogers Poultry owned a chicken farm across the road “where the rats roamed free – and they were the size of dogs”. Faye left Dandenong High School at age 14 when her father died, and she had been offered a job at Bedgood’s shoe factory. “We follow Dandenong all of us. We used to go in George Riddell’s furniture truck. We had a great life really, an excellent life.”
Compiled by Dandenong & District Historical Society
