Rosstown Sugarworks, near Melbourne-(East Front.)

Colonial engraving of the proposed Rosstown Sugarworks which were never built in the present day suburb of Carnegie.

Originally called Rosstown, the area wasn’t named Carnegie until 1909. Earlier, in 1875 William Ross began circulating a broadsheet proposal which detailed the Rosstown project: a large scale sugar beet processing mill, a railway line to serve it and a residential estate, named after him on the edge of the metropolis between Melbourne and the town of Oakleigh. Although he began building the mill, it never began production, and the Rosstown Railway he constructed was never used. However, the estate sold well and gradually Rosstown had grown to a reasonable size aided by the opening of the railway to Melbourne in 1879. Carnegie Post Office opened on 1 September 1911. Carnegie was originally part of the City of Caulfield and by the 1920s it had a substantial commercial area. The Carnegie theatre was, in the 1930s, a popular cinema.

From the original edition of the Australasian Sketcher.

Collections:
State Library Victoria: Accession no: A/S08/07/76/53