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THE ORIGINAL SAWMILLS

The original sawmills in the district were McRaes at Boolambayte and the Hudson Brothers Mill at Nerani. Alex Croll built the first mill at Dirty Creek (Nerong Village). In the 1870's, the Australian Timber Company Limited built a saw mill at Mayers Point.

These mills were all located close to water for easy transport to market. At first logs were cut and moved by hand to the mills. But from 1860 to the early 1900's bullock teams were used to pull the logs to the mill. As the proximity of good logs became scarce, several wood railway lines (horse drawn) and narrow gauge railways were built in many of our forests to transport the logs to the mills. These became obsolete with the development of road and motor transport.

BULAHDELAH'S  MILLS

Probably the first mill at Bulahdelah was Dicksons, about 4 kilometres down the Bombah Point Road near Geoff Ireland's property. At about the same time the R. E. Lee and Bandsaw Company built a mill at Purgatory.

Charles Dee built several mills, the first at the Upper Myall, which was shifted to Fry's Creek, became Viggers and was later owned by Tom Mason.

Relf's (now one of Dorney's mills) was built around 1900 by Mr. McSweeny who was bought out by Sir Allen Taylor who bought and built several mills. This mill used a 2 ton steam traction engine to haul logs and timber from the mill to the main wharf down Stroud Street (The main street of Bulahdelah).

Over the years the region has witnessed many mills, including ones at the Crawford, Deep Creek, Newell's Creek, three on the Myall River banks and one on the eastern end of Lee Street.

TODAY'S MILLS

Today, we still have five mills operating close to Bulahdelah.

THE FORESTRY COMMISSION

The Forestry Commission was not established until the late 193O's /1940's in a back yard shed near 44 Crawford Street, Bulahdelah. In 1943, it was moved to the corner of Meade and Harold Street. In 1951, the present Forestry compound was established.