Eurongilly is now just a general location about 21km east from Junee along Gundagai Road and until about 1866 was part of a pastoral lease held by the then lessee of Wantabadgery Run.
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The discovery of gold led to the inevitable rush, centred on the area where Kameruka Lane meets the Eurongilly to Wantabadgery Road (McGlede’s Hill Road).
Both reef and alluvial gold was mined and a crusher was installed to handle the rock but optimism was short lived as by 1870, the Hope and Kermode reefs had been abandoned and Morris’ was failing.
Over the next 25 years, other discoveries such as the Enterprise, Madam Doyle, Pioneer and Victoria mines and others on McCarthy’s about 5km towards Junee proved nonviable. A Huntington Mill to crush and separate the ore was erected in 1896 but was later moved to Adelong.
This area was also known as Clarendon and as hundreds of miners and their families moved in, other developments followed as would be expected when at its peak, the Eurongilly Goldfields (declared in 1878), hosted about 2000 miners.
A school was needed and the Clarendon School was privately established in 1875, the teacher being paid on a per child basis.
This closed in 1903 as the decline in mining saw most of the gold seekers leave the district.
The Post Office was established in 1866 on the Wantabadgery Road just south of Kameruka Lane with mail delivered on horseback.
Mail was carried under contracts which stated the method of carriage, the number of horses and type of conveyance and the contract price.
Early buildings still in existence are the Police Station and lockup (a stone cottage alongside the Gundagai Road near Wantabadgery Road intersection) and the former Clarendon Hotel, 200m towards Wantabadgery. The correct date of construction is uncertain but it has been in the Sheridan family since 1914.
Another hotel, the Bird in the Hand and an Anglican Church were also in the vicinity.
The Eurongilly Store, north east of Clarendon School, opened in the 1890s and was run by Mary Cameron. When it closed, Mary helped run the Post Office until her death in 1916. From then on, Mrs Gillies operated it until its closure in the 1930s.
For a small community, the existence of two now unmarked cemeteries is interesting. One is on the northern side of Kameruka Lane near mining sites. The other, Clarendon Cemetery, is on Maimuru. The names of some buried include Makeham, Boyton and Barron.
Eurongilly had no school from 1903 and after locals pressed for one in 1915, approval was given in 1918 for the closed Mitta School building to be moved to a site about 5km north of the former mines. Since then, the school has been much modernised and education in the district has thrived.
Eurongilly now consists of the school, hall, tennis courts and a war memorial in an area well known for good farming country.
