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Named
in 1827 by Hamilton Hume, in honour of Governor Brisbane’s
private secretary, William
Lithgow,
Lithgow Valley's first European settlers arrived in 1824. By 1860,
only four more families had followed Scotsman Andrew Brown
and settled in the valley. It was not until the western
railway line
was constructed to Lithgow, in 1869, that the town prospered.
Thomas
Brown
commenced the valley's first commercial coal mine. The Zig
Zag Railway,
an engineering feat, was completed in 1869, allowing the descent of
trains into the valley. A combination of vast coal reserves and the
rail service meant Lithgow provided an ideal location for industries
dependent on these resources.
James
Rutherford
established the iron industry in 1875 when he erected a blast
furnace to
manufacture pig iron. By 1900 Lithgow
had produced the first steel manufactured
in Australia. Copper
smelting, breweries, brickworks,
pipe and pottery
works followed. Meat refrigeration was also established by Thomas
Mort in
1875. The first Australian chilled meat from Lithgow arrived in
England in 1880.
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The decline of Lithgow's industrial
heyday made way for light industry after World War II. In the late
1950s, a power generating plant was built at Wallerawang paving
the way for Lithgow’s role in the clean and efficient
production of energy.
Lithgow
today is shaped by a colourful history, challenged by ongoing
technological and cultural development and, most importantly,
surrounded by nature.
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