Kendenup

Western entrance to the beautiful Stirling Ranges National Park

Latitude 34° 29' S Longitude 117° 38' E

The locality of Kendenup is located in the great southern agricultural region, 345 km south east of Perth and 22 km north of Mount Barker. Kendenup is one of the original stations on the Great Southern Railway, and is included in a Timetable of June 1889.

Kendenup's one claim to importance is that, in 1874, it became the site of Western Australia's first gold mine.

The area was first settled by the Hassell family in the 1840s and derives it's name from "Kendenup", the homestead that the Hassell family built there. Kenenup is a name of Aboriginal origion, and unknown meaning. In March of that year John Hassell drove 850 sheep from Albany to Kendenup. He established a huge sheep station which became quite legendary as a stopping point for itinerants moving through the area.

In 1920 the Hassell family sold Kendenup station to Clement John de Garis, the remarkable and visionary rural businessman who had developed the Sunraysia dried fruit industry in Victoria.

A townsite was established and a dehydrating factory was built to process the vegetables and fruit grown by the settlers. For more than two years this closer settlement scheme continued in action, with a good deal of publicity. However, for various reasons the scheme failed, and many of the two hundred-odd settlers left their blocks while a number of (just over thirty) families stayed on.

These families formed the Nucleus of Kendenup as it is now, and for some years fought on, making every effort to make the place a success.

From then on Kendenup has continued to develop as a mixed farming district.