Bolivia is a locality on the

Northern Tablelands The Northern Tablelands, also known as the New England Tableland, is a plateau and a region of the Great Dividing Range in northern New South Wales, Australia. It includes the New England Range, the narrow highlands area of the New England regio ...

in the

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

region of

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. The remains of the settlement comprises the former Bolivia Hotel, a disused post office, a disused railway siding and a community hall.

History

The area where Bolivia was established is the territory of the

Ngarabal The Ngarabal are an Aboriginal people of the area from Ashford, Tenterfield and Glen Innes in northern New South Wales, Australia. Language Ngarabal was still spoken in the area around Glen Innes, Stonehenge and Emmaville when John MacPherson p ...

people. In the Ngarabal language, the area is known as Bilba, meaning big bushes. This area has continued to remain significant to Ngarabal people since European settlement, containing significant sacred sites and ceremony grounds. There are records of 300 Aboriginal people taking part in a corroboree there in the 1870s. The first European settlement was in 1840, with the establishment of a sheep station owned by a squatter named Edward Hurry. Hurry had previously spent some years in

Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

, and chose this name for the land around his property. Hurry's sheep contracted

catarrh Catarrh is an exudate of inflamed mucous membranes in one of the airways or cavities of the body, usually with reference to the throat and paranasal sinuses. It can result in a thick exudate of mucus and white blood cells caused by the swelling o ...

and he sold Bolivia to Sir

Stuart Donaldson Sir Stuart Alexander Donaldson (16 December 1812 – 11 January 1867) was the first Premier of the Colony of New South Wales. Early life Donaldson was born in London, England. He entered his father's firm at the age of 15 and was sent first t ...

who then held the property until 1843. During the 1840s, Bolivia was bought by Edward Irby. There was fierce Ngarabal resistance to Irby's incursion into their traditional territory, culminating in numerous expeditions led by Irby, together with Thomas Windeyer and his servants, Connor and Weaving, seeking retaliation against Ngarabal killings of men associated with their land holdings. Irby's memoirs record that on one of these expeditions, in 1842, they "routed" around 100 Aboriginal people, burning their camp and all of their property. On another, on October 17, 1844, Irby recounts that he and the men "punish(ed) severely" a group of Aboriginal people hiding in the rocks who they held responsible for the killing of one of their men. During the 1880s a township developed towards the foot of Bolivia Hill as the railway was extended through the area. The town supported two bakeries, two butchers, two general stores, a produce store, a post and telegraph office and the railway offices, workshop and stables etc. The first school opened in 1883 and closed in 1886. Several other schools opened later and one was operating up until November 1966. Bolivia Post Office opened on 30 April 1883 and closed in 1982. In 1981 the name Bolivia was assigned to the region covered by the various farms comprising Hurry's original estate, and is now an address locality for the farming properties scattered to the north and northeast of Deepwater. The former Bolivia Hotel on the New England Highway has been listed on the

Register of the National Estate The Register of the National Estate was a heritage register that listed natural and cultural heritage places in Australia that was closed in 2007. Phasing out began in 2003, when the Australian National Heritage List and the Commonwealth Heritag ...

. This building was constructed c. 1840-1860 as a

Cobb & Co Cobb & Co was the name used by many successful sometimes quite independent Australian coaching businesses. The first was established in 1853 by American Freeman Cobb and his partners. The name Cobb & Co grew to great prominence in the late 19th ...

. coach changing station and was later used as a post office and boarding house. Coach horses required regular changing about every 10 to 25 km in order to provide quick transport. These hotels were known as a "Changing Station" and here passengers and horses could have something to eat or stay overnight. The Bolivia School of Arts building was erected 1914 on land donated by A.M. White of Bolivia Station. Many minerals have been mined in the region including

bismuth Bismuth is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Bi and atomic number 83. It is a post-transition metal and one of the pnictogens, with chemical properties resembling its lighter group 15 siblings arsenic and antimony. Elemental ...

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...

tin Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn (from la, stannum) and atomic number 50. Tin is a silvery-coloured metal. Tin is soft enough to be cut with little force and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, t ...

silver Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...

, high quality

silica Silicon dioxide, also known as silica, is an oxide of silicon with the chemical formula , most commonly found in nature as quartz and in various living organisms. In many parts of the world, silica is the major constituent of sand. Silica is one ...

and

arsenic Arsenic is a chemical element with the symbol As and atomic number 33. Arsenic occurs in many minerals, usually in combination with sulfur and metals, but also as a pure elemental crystal. Arsenic is a metalloid. It has various allotropes, but ...

. The Bolivia Cemetery was dedicated in July 1884 and officially closed in February 1986. This and the Bolivia Station Cemetery were used regularly until c.1900 but have had little use since then. No headstones remain and a few plants and depressions in the ground are the only indication of the cemetery there.

Geography

Bolivia occupies land to the north of

Deepwater Creek Deepwater Creek is a stream in Henry County in west central Missouri. It is a tributary of the Truman Reservoir. The stream begins at the confluence of North Deepwater Creek and South Deepwater Creek in western Henry County (at ) east-southeast ...

and along both sides of

Splitters Swamp Creek Splitter or splitters may refer to: Technology * DSL filter or DSL splitter, in telecommunications * Fiber-optic splitter * Hybrid coil, a three windings transformer * Power dividers and directional couplers, in RF engineering * Siamese connect ...

. A series of rough

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

outcrops dominate the landscape on either side of the creek beds. Little Bolivia Hill rises approximately eighty metres above Deepwater Creek on the southern boundary of the locality.

Flora

Bolivia Hill and the adjacent nature reserve are the only recorded locations of the endangered Bolivia Hill Boronia (''

Boronia boliviensis ''Boronia boliviensis'', commonly known as Bolivia Hill boronia is a plant in the citrus family, Rutaceae and is endemic to a small area on the Northern Tablelands of New South Wales. It is a strongly scented shrub with pinnate leaves, deep pink ...

''), Bolivia

Homoranthus ''Homoranthus'' is a genus of about thirty species of plants in the myrtle family Myrtaceae and all are endemic to Australia. Plants in this genus share similarities with those in both '' Darwinia'' and '' Verticordia''. They are shrubs with th ...

(''

Homoranthus croftianus ''Homoranthus croftianus'', commonly known as Bolivia homoranthus, is a plant in the myrtle family Myrtaceae and is endemic to a small area near Bolivia in northern New South Wales. It is an upright shrub with pointed leaves arranged in altern ...

''), Bolivia Stringybark (''

Eucalyptus boliviana ''Eucalyptus boliviana'', commonly known as Bolivia Hill stringybark or Bolivia stringybark is a shrub or a mallee, sometimes a small tree and is endemic to a small area in northern New South Wales. It is a stringybark with four-sides stems, bro ...

''), the shrub Bolivia Hill Pimelea (''

Pimelea venosa ''Pimelea venosa'', commonly known as Bolivia Hill rice-flower, is a flowering plant in the family Thymelaeaceae and is endemic to a restricted area of New South Wales. It is an erect shrub with densely long-hairy stems and leaves, elliptic to la ...

'') and the vulnerable Bolivia wattle ('' Acacia pycnostachya'').

Sports

Tennis, cricket, pigeon shooting,

polo Polo is a ball game played on horseback, a traditional field sport and one of the world's oldest known team sports. The game is played by two opposing teams with the objective of scoring using a long-handled wooden mallet to hit a small hard ...

and horse racing were among the popular sports that were held at Bolivia.

Industries

Local industries include wine growing and beef cattle farms. In May 2001 a

Red Angus The Red Angus is an international breed of beef cattle characterised by a reddish-brown coat colour. It derives from the Scottish Aberdeen Angus population and, apart from the coat colour, is identical to it. Red Angus are registered separatel ...

bull from Bolivia was sold for an Australian record price of $17,500.

Bolivia railway station

References

External links

{{authority control Towns in New South Wales Main North railway line, New South Wales