VICPort & river
Hastings
Deep water on Western Port made a fishing camp into a port town.
1860sKings Creek fishing settlement becomes Hastings
WHAT STARTED IT
A fishing settlement grew at Kings Creek, where deeper water came closer to shore than at the head of the Hastings Bight. The same deep water later drew a naval base nearby and heavy industry.
WHAT SUSTAINED IT
The first jetty was built in 1865, and by 1889 some seventy fishermen and fifty boats worked from the village. The defence railway arrived in 1889, and from the 1960s an oil refinery, steelworks and gas plant made Hastings Western Port’s industrial town.
TURNING POINTS
1860sThe fishing settlement at Kings Creek is renamed Hastings, probably after the English port.
1865The first Hastings jetty is built.
1889The railway from Frankston, built for defence, opens to Hastings and is extended to Stony Point in December.
1960Hastings shire is formed by severance from Frankston shire.
1972The Lysaght steelworks opens at old Tyabb, after the BP refinery at Crib Point (1966).
WHAT IT DOES NOW
A town on Western Port with a marina, foreshore reserve and main-street shops, serving the naval base and the port’s steel and fuel trade.