General News
2 September, 2024
Times Gone By
- from Rainbow Archives and Historical Society's Peter Ralph.
The actual date and origin of this aerial photo is shrouded in mystery, but it is very clearly one of the first ever taken of the northern edge of Rainbow town.
The earliest of such official systematic air coverages of rural Victoria that I have previously seen were taken in the late 1940s, but there may have been some prior.
Note that the crosses are added survey points, as is the large hand-drawn square at the top.
What we can clearly see are similarities, but also differences, some quite significant, to what we know of the area today.
Check out the following features,
* The railway side of Cust Street is pretty well built on, but there are few homes on the other side.
* Edward Street, just in the picture, has homes on both sides.
* Yurunga with its tree-rows, open expanses and defined drive leading to the coach-house.
* Several buildings and yards to the west are probably to do with the former slaughterhouse.
* Both sides of Albert Street are sparsely built on.
* The school consists of only the 1922 building, but has a large expanse of playing area.
* Note the four houses between that school playing area and the laneway.
* Apart from the vacant western block, Gray Street is well-housed.
* House-wise, King Street is a mixture.
* West’s paddock (or the “top oval”) has the added square, suggesting the photo had a planning purpose related to when the school acquired the area for sporting purposes in the 1950s-60s.
* The two dams to the east of that paddock along the Yaapeet Road are prominent, one dry.
* The homes and back yards along Taverner Street indicate lots of activity. Are they chook sheds, pig pens, horse stalls/stables, greenhouses?
* Shadows indicate that the photo was taken mid- to late morning.
Please feel free to help us with any information which may shed light on what more this amazing aerial shot can tell us about Rainbow’s history.
I plan to have an enlargement of this photograph in Martin Keller’s window so that details can be picked up first-hand by interested readers.