want more history?

The El Dorado Museum isn’t the only historical offering the area has – here are our top picks for more historical adventures:

Read the local interpretive panels on corner of Mackay and Main Streets
Take an Historical Sites walk (download eldorado brochure & map.PDF 11MB)
Explore the Woolshed Valley Touring Route self-guided drive with interpretive panels along the way (download woolshed brochure. PDF 8MB )
Visit the Eldorado Cemetery which is set on the western slopes of the range running south from Monument Hill.
Take a quiet stroll around Cock’s El Dorado Gold and Tin Mining Dredge and pond. (download DREDEGE BOOKLET .PDF 26MB )
Wander along Reid’s Walk through the mining areas along Reedy Creek on the northern edge of the town. (eldoroado brochure & map .PDF 11MB )
The village area features a number of Memorials: The McEvoy mine disaster, WW1 war memorial and Honour boards, WW2 plaque, Edwin Bawden (Boer war) memorial on the top of Monument Hill
Visit www.eldorado.org.au for more local information on things to see and do, accommodation and attractions.

The El Dorado Cemetery Trust has maintained the grounds over the years with regular working bees which have become quite a community social event, as willing workers enjoy a social chat over afternoon tea at completion of the tidying up.

There are many marked and unmarked graves of the town’s early pioneers in the cemetery and in the early times the graves were segregated: Catholic, Wesleyan & Anglican, today there is no segregation.

The earliest known burial is that of an infant in 1854. The old headstones with their verses are truly beautiful memorials to those long gone. Some tell very sad tales of infants and young children. Large families often lost more than one of their children at birth, in accidents or due to disease.

One such headstone is:

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF ALFRED

BELOVED SON OF

HENRY & DORETTA WEINBERG OF EL DORADO

DEPARTED THIS LIFE APRIL 7^th 1869 AGED 3 YEARS

SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN TO COME UNTO ME

AND FORSAKE THEM NOT

FOR SUCH IS THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN

In 1900, a fire destroyed all papers of the cemetery records. Trustees in 1902 were H. Horrocks, H. Walker, A. Allen, W.C. Hollow, and W. Young.

In 1912 chairman of the Trust was J. McLaughlin, secretary, R. E. Cunningham, Treasurer John Moore, with W.C. Hollow and J. W. Milne as Trust members.

On the initiative of Mr Jim Milne in 1958 the grave sites were surveyed by Mr O. Smith and the blueprints of same were received by the Trust. The Minister for Health paid the cost of 72 pounds.

Jim Milne continued to gather information about the grave sites, talking to relatives and visitors on Sunday afternoons at the cemetery. Geoff, his son, took over as secretary in 1972 and continues this work today.

Mrs J. Kay of Tarrawingee has gathered information and researched records to create a written account of burials.

Mr H. Plemming of Springhurst, has been researching cemetery records of several areas in the district, compiled an alphabetical- date list of approximately 800 El Dorado deaths. Many, but not all are interred in El Dorado. Link PDF