Digging People Up for Coal: A History of Yallourn (Yallourn Story)

Yallourn was designed in the 1920s as a garden town, laid out on “hygienic and aesthetic principles” embodying “the most modern practice.” It became a thriving and close-knit community that was home to several generations of State Electricity Commission (SEC) workers and their families. By the 1960s, however, it was being portrayed as outmoded, “unattractive to modern housewives,” decrepit, and obsolete. The town was no longer described as a model town but as an area that had to be cleared. This book brings to life the impact of the town and its demise on the individuals who lived there and on the community they created—a community that still exists vividly in memory and imagination.