Archies Creek

Archies Creek is a rural village in west Gippsland, 8 km north-west of Wonthaggi. The naming of the creek is obscure, apart from the conjecture that there was an early settler with the surname Archer or Archie.

Farm subdivisions were taken up at Archies Creek in the 1880s in country that was suited to dairying. A school was opened in 1891 and a recreation reserve was set aside for emerging sporting clubs. A hotel was opened in 1902.

At about that time local milk producers, feeling that dairy factories were not paying them well enough, bought out a small factory at Archies Creek and formed a company composed of local shareholders. Named the Wonthaggi Dairy Produce Co, the company enlarged the factory, renamed it Archies Creek Dairy, and by the 1950s employed 200 people. It purchased bulk milk as far away as the Mornington Peninsula and was the first factory to use bulk tankers (1956).

The establishment of the factory engendered the need for a hall (1903) and an Anglican church (1933). Several stores comprised a village shopping area.

During the years after World War II Archies Creek dairy products were exported to over twenty countries. Notwithstanding the company's growth, dairy factory rationalisations resulted in its takeover by Murray Goulburn (1972) and closure in 1983. Archies Creek was the administrative centre for Bass Shire, c1979-94.

Archies Creek has a general store, a hotel, a restaurant, a recreation reserve and a public hall. Its census populations have been: