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Indigenous Australians used Dight Falls as a meeting place, river crossing and for fishing before the Europeans took over the land/ river. -
He constructed a brick mill in the area and starts to produce flour
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John Dights gets ownership of portion 88, Parish of Jika Jika, County of Bourke on 1838 -
In 1843 ownership of the land was given to John Dight and his brother Charles Hilton Dight -
In 1864 the flour milling use was abandoned and the mill was leased to Thomas Kenny -
In the mid 1870s, the site was used by the Patent Safety Blasting Powder Co.
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In 1878 the Dight family sold the mill site to Edwin Trennery and he subdivided the land. -
The original mill on the river bank remained unfilled until 1888. When flour millers Gillespie, Aitken and Scott, operating under the name of 'Yarra Falls Roller Flour Mills' constructed a new mill. -
In 1890, the founding Act of the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works was established. -
This enterprise was sold in 1891 to the Melbourne Flour Milling Company, run by the Hon. James Bell. -
The Board issued a licence to the company in 1895 for the construction and maintenance of the weir at the Falls. -
In 1909 The Melbourne Flour Milling Co sold its mill on the banks of the Yarra at Abbotsford to Messrs John Darling and his son, the millers and wheat merchants of South Australia. -
John Darling and his son extended the lease with the Board of Works, for only 3 months. In this time, however the mill suffered a terrible fire and was destroyed. Most of what remained of the mill buildings was dismantled and removed from the site in the following 20 years. -
The Weir partially rebuilt in 1941 is of historical importance. It is significant because it shows the position of the original weir and it is one of the few surviving examples of a nineteenth century industrial prime mover that survives in situ anywhere in Victoria.