Prior to white settlement, the Portland region was occupied by the Wiradjuri people. The first European in the area was James Blackman who surveyed roads in the area in 1820 and today Blackman’s Flat and Blackman’s Crown bear the family name.<\/p>\n
The town of Portland is of interest as a historic mining town, and also as the place of the first cement factory in Australia. Portland really got its start when Thomas Murray selected 61 hectares of land in 1863 and constructed his first lime kiln on what is now the corner of Lime and Villiers Streets. The railway came through Portland in 1882[4] and the first station opened in 1887 was called Cullen Siding until 1889. The Cullen Bullen Lime and Cement Company established operations in the village that year. During the early 1890s, the first cement-making kilns west of the Blue Mountains were built in Portland.<\/p>\n
In 1894, the village was gazetted as Portland, the name derived from the cement-making process which was already well underway in the area.\u00a0Click here for a detailed history of Portland<\/a><\/p>\n 360\u00b0 Virtual Tour of Portalnd, NSW<\/strong><\/p>\n