The article in Black&White states - "NO LACK OF RICHES ON POVERTY ST
IS there any Victorian street with a less apt name than Poverty St in Tarnagulla? After Daryl Cronk, of Junortoun, noted that’s one street he’d hate to live on, Howard pointed out that might be a mistake.
Far from being a street of hard knocks, Poverty St was once the road to riches.
“Poverty St leads to the Poverty Mine, which yielded 13½ tons of gold back in the old days,” Howard says.
“It was named by a bloke who found the mine who wrecked his ship in Poverty Bay in New Zealand. That’s where the name came from.”
Tarnagulla publican John Lavery said the sailor, Captain David Hatt, was rescued by a “Maori maiden” , whom he fell in love with and married.
“They came to the central Victorian goldfields in 1853, and discovered what was probably the richest gold mine in the world at that time,” he says.
Is there an unusual story behind your street name? Let us know."