TIME CHRONOLOGY
Significant Local Farming Events
From the book: A History of Hazelwood
| Year | Event |
| 1880's | Grazing Licences formalise the summer pasturing of cattle along parts of the southern coastline. |
| 1908 | Bert Saw and relations become the first European land owners in the district. Bert builds a shingle hut and a slab hut on the banks of the Bow River and runs cattle at the Bow and on the Quarram East hills. |
| 1909 | AW Johnson surveyed the Frankland River from its source to the Nornalup Inlet. |
| 1910 | Bellanger family starts farming on the banks of the Frankland River at Nornalup and later open a guest house. |
| 1910 | James Mitchell, Minister of Lands and Agriculture declares the forerunner of the Walpole National Park as he was so impressed with the beauty of the area. |
| 1922 | Premier James Mitchell orders crown land between Denmark and the Frankland River to be surveyed to create group settlement farms which would be serviced by a railway line already on the drawing boards. |
| 1924 | Group Settlement Scheme Group 116 at Tingledale starts. |
| 1924-26 | Royal Commissions inquires into Group Settlement Scheme and the establishment of new groups is abandoned briefly. |
| 1927 | Groups 138 and 139 settler families arrive at Hazelvale under the resumed and modified Group Settlement Scheme (the 300 New Farms Scheme). |
| 1928 | Last groups under the Scheme are settled. |
| 1929 | Wall Street crash triggers the Great Depression. |
| 1930 | Group Settlement Scheme terminated; no more groups established. Settlers are granted debt relief and freehold title on reclassified ‘Standard’ holdings provided they take out a mortgage with the Agricultural Bank. |
| 1930 | A Special Settlement Scheme is established for unemployed married West Australian men to create farms. The nucleus of Walpole town is established to service the new settlers. |
| 1930- | to the end of World War 2 is a very hard time and many settlers leave unable to cope with the increasing debt and reduced incomes. |
| 1947 | Name change “Hazelwood” to “Hazelvale” |
| 1950's | Resurgence in farming with new people and amalgamation of blocks. Machinery, improvements in animal husbandry and use of trace elements increases productivity. |
| 1967 | SEC connects electricity to Hazelvale farms. |
| 1970's | All the Hazelvale dairy farmers, with one exception, cease milking cows and change to beef cattle production or other rural based enterprises. |
| 1975 | Business privacy - single telephone ‘party’ line replaced by automatic exchange. |
| 2022 | Today, Hazelvale’s main industry is beef cattle farming on owned and leased lands. Eleven resident families run commercial beef cattle herds. There are two commercial orchards. |
A History of Hazelvale by Dawn Martin, 2022.