History

Rosedale is a pastoral and agricultural town 184 kilometres east of Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

 via the Princes Highway

Princes Highway

The Princes Highway extends from Sydney to Port Augusta via the coast through the states of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, a distance of 1941 km or 1898 km via the former alignments of the highway ....

. Once a staging post on the Port Albert

Port Albert, Victoria

Port Albert is a coastal town in Victoria, Australia, on the coast of Corner Inlet on the Yarram - Port Albert Road, kilometres south-east of Morwell, kilometres south-east of Melbourne, in the Shire of Wellington. At the 2006 census, Port Albert had a population of 248.Port Albert was one of the...

 to Sale

Sale, Victoria

Sale is a city in the Gippsland region of the Australian state of Victoria. It is the seat of the Shire of Wellington as well as the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sale and the Anglican Diocese of Gippsland. It has a population of around 13,336, and is expected to reach a population of 14,000 soon...

 coach run, it was once the administrative centre of the Shire of Rosedale

Shire of Rosedale

The Shire of Rosedale was a Local Government Area stretching between the towns of Traralgon and Sale in the Gippsland region of Victoria, Australia. The shire covered an area of , and existed from 1869 until 1994.-History:...

 which extended to the east and included Ninety Mile Beach. It is now part of the Wellington Shire centred in Sale. At the 2006 census

Census in Australia

The Australian census is administered once every five years by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The most recent census was conducted on 9 August 2011; the next will be conducted in 2016. Prior to the introduction of regular censuses in 1961, they had also been run in 1901, 1911, 1921, 1933,...

, Rosedale had a population of 1,077.

The earliest European inhabitant in the district is thought to have been a man named Blind Joe who lived in a hut on the Latrobe River

Latrobe River

The La Trobe River is a river in Gippsland, Victoria, Australia. It begins in the area between Powelltown and Noojee where it shares a watershed with the Little Yarra River, a tributary of the Yarra River, and has a number of tributaries joining it from the southern slopes of the Baw Baw plateau,...

. The town is named after and built upon the site of a station owned by David Parry-Okedon, who, in 1843, called his run Rosedale after his wife, Rosalie.

Rosedale Post Office opened on 8 February 1859.

The area was once part of the Holey Plain grazing run, owned by the Curlewis brothers. Edward Crooke, who emigrated to Australia in 1837 and purchased a station at Omeo

Omeo, Victoria

Omeo is a town in Victoria, Australia, located on the Great Alpine Road, east of Mount Hotham, in the Shire of East Gippsland. At the 2006 census, Omeo had a population of 452. The name is derived from the Aboriginal word for 'mountains' or 'hills'...

 in the early 1840s, used the run as a holding station for the livestock which he drove to Port Albert for shipment to Van Diemen's Land

Van Diemen's Land

Van Diemen's Land was the original name used by most Europeans for the island of Tasmania, now part of Australia. The Dutch explorer Abel Tasman was the first European to land on the shores of Tasmania...

. He later leased the property and his son built an impressive homestead with a four-tiered tower on the site in 1889. Crooke's descendants still live in the district.

The town has a football club in the North Gippsland Football League

North Gippsland Football League

The North Gippsland Football League is an Australian rules football league in the Central Gippsland area of Victoria, Australia, formed in 1955 through the merger of the Cowwarr Football League and the Sale District Football League....

.