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 consisting of 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 (state), New York to the west and by the ...

region of

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

. 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 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 Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, w ...

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

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

catarrh Catarrh ( ) is an inflammation of 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 ...

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 Heri ...

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

Cobb & Co Cobb & Co was the name used by several independent Australian coach businesses. The first company to use 'Cobb & Co' was established in 1853 by American Freeman Cobb and his partners. The name grew to great prominence in the late 19th century, ...

. 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; it has 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 bismuth occurs nat ...

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

tin Tin is a chemical element; it has symbol Sn () and atomic number 50. A silvery-colored 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, a bar of tin makes a sound, the ...

silver Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...

, high quality

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

and

arsenic Arsenic is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol As and atomic number 33. It is a metalloid and one of the pnictogens, and therefore shares many properties with its group 15 neighbors phosphorus and antimony. Arsenic is not ...

. 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 and along both sides of Splitters Swamp Creek. A series of rough

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, 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 coo ...

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''), Bolivia Homoranthus ('' Homoranthus croftianus''), Bolivia Stringybark ('' Eucalyptus boliviana''), the shrub Bolivia Hill Pimelea ('' Pimelea venosa'') and the vulnerable Bolivia wattle ('' Acacia pycnostachya'').

Sports

Tennis, cricket, pigeon shooting,

polo Polo is a stick and ball game that is played on horseback as a traditional field sport. It is one of the world's oldest known team sports, having been adopted in the Western world from the game of Chovgan (), which originated in ancient ...

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 is identical to it in all but coat colour. Red Angus are registered separately from ...

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