How Leneva got its name

We are fortunate to have in our archives a number of hand-written history notes from Mr Norman Fraser who died in 1989. He had worked on the Hume Dam construction and resided at Mitta Junction township.

THE NAMING OF LENEVA

My information on this matter was given to me many years ago by Mr Alex Paterson whose parents, Mr and Mrs John Paterson, lived at Leneva near where the road from Baranduda joins the road to Beechworth.

Alex Paterson was one of the original settlers on the Walla Walla Sub-division when the Walla Walla station was cut up in 1909 and it was while I was assisting to build his house there that he related to me a lot of the history of Leneva. The locality was originally known as Middle Creek and this name was sent in to the Authorities when an application was made for a Post Office but the name was rejected as there was already a Post Office of that name, it being in the Ballarat district. (There is now a Middle Creek 3375).

One of the persons dealing with the correspondence for the establishment of the Post Office was Mr Manns, the School Teacher at the original school. The township of Avenel was a place much in the news at that time as it was the Rail Head during the construction of the railway pushing on towards Wodonga. Much of the goods for Wodonga were railed to Avenel and then carted by road to Wodonga. Mr Manns, faced with finding an alternate name to Middle Creek, reversed the Avenel and found Leneva which was accepted by all concerned as the name for the proposed Post Office. As far as I can remember, the Postal Facilities were at Mr Paterson’s residence.

In my early days at Wodonga I remember the mail from the Wodonga to Leneva being carried by Mr Pat Greenan of Lawrence Street in his horse and gig. When Mr Manns retired to Wodonga in the early part of this century he lived in a newly-erected brick house in Hume Street on the eastern side between Stanley and Lawrence, it being the first erected in that section of Hume Street.