VICRail & telegraph
Box Hill
A roadside inn and a railway station grew into Melbourne’s eastern hub.
1853Whitehorse Hotel opens on the road east
WHAT STARTED IT
A three-chain road planned as a route east from Melbourne crossed the district, and its traffic encouraged a hotel here in 1853. The inn stood at the eastern edge of Henry Elgar’s Special Survey, and the road took its name, Whitehorse Road.
WHAT SUSTAINED IT
Orchards, vineyards and mixed farming surrounded a small township until the 1882 railway, a school and the shire council drew business. In 1885 painters including Tom Roberts and Frederick McCubbin camped in the nearby bush, and Box Hill became a city in 1927 before postwar suburbs filled the farmland.
TURNING POINTS
1853The Whitehorse Hotel opens on the road east.
1861Box Hill post office opens, the first official use of the name.
1882The railway from Camberwell to Lilydale opens with a station at Box Hill.
1885An artists’ camp forms in the bush south of Box Hill.
1927Box Hill is declared a city.
WHAT IT DOES NOW
A regional centre of eastern Melbourne with high-rise towers, a major rail and bus interchange, a hospital and a large Chinese community.