Geelong history and heritage: from Wathaurong country to Australia's second city

Geelong's history is the story of a city that was nearly Victoria's capital (it led Melbourne in population in the 1850s), built its prosperity on wool and wheat, became the Ford manufacturing hub of Australia, and is now reinventing itself as the Deakin University-anchored knowledge and healthcare city that the Ford closure of 2016 forced upon it.

National Wool Museum — the most significant heritage asset for understanding Geelong's founding prosperity is the National Wool Museum in the 1872 bluestone wool store on Moorabool Street, which covers the Wathaurong pastoral displacement, the wool industry mechanics (shearing, baling, shipping), and Geelong's role as the dominant wool port of the world at its 1880s peak.

Geelong Gaol — the 1853 bluestone gaol operated continuously until 1991, housing the criminals, the social deviants, and the political prisoners that colonial Victoria sent to what was then considered a remote but serious facility. The heritage tours through the original cells, the gallows yard, and the women's division provide the Victorian-era carceral experience that the building's survival makes possible.

Ford Discovery Centre — the museum at the former Ford factory documents the 90-year history of Ford vehicle manufacturing in Geelong (1925-2016), including the Falcon that defined Australian family motoring for half a century. The last Falcon produced in Geelong — car number 4,000,000 — is displayed as both an industrial heritage artifact and a memorial to the manufacturing era.

Eastern Beach and the Carousel precinct — the 1928 carousel, the 1930s art deco buildings along Eastern Beach Road, and the heritage foreshore development document the inter-war resort era when Geelong's proximity to Melbourne (by train) made the waterfront a popular summer holiday destination for the Melbourne working class.

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