the Muddy Creek became quite busy as part of the route from Melbourne to the goldfields at Beechworth and the eastern highlands, and also from them to Ballarat. After a blacksmith set up a forge and dwelling at the crossing, and a complaint from the local landholder, a town was surveyed and laid out in 1855 by T.W.Pinniger. Apparently under instruction from the State Surveyor-General Andrew Clarke, it was named after Colonel Lacy Walter Giles Yea – a British Army colonel killed in June of that year at the Battle of the Great Redan in the Crimean War, and who had been Clarke's commanding officer in England in 1830s. Town lots went on sale at Kilmore the following year. There was at least one store open by 1856, and the Post Office opened in 1858. Development Yea expanded under the influx of hopeful prospectors, both as a natural overnight stopping place on the route from Melbourne to other goldfields, but especially when gold was discovered in the local area in the late 1850s. The gold-mining localities near Yea included the 'Providence' diggings just across the Yea River from the town, in the Ghin Ghin area, the Ti Tree Creek, and the 'Higinbotham' area on the Murrindindi Creek. None except the Providence and Ti Tree Creek yielded profitable gold on any commercial scale for more than about 5 years, the Providence was effectively closed by 1889 and the Welcome mine on Ti Tree Creek by the mid 1890s. After the gold mining ended the town survived on servicing farming and timber getting (chiefly from the Murrindindi forests). The sawmilling industry saw a high production period from 1907 to 1915, at the end of which the Great War saw many men enlist, and then another boom from 1923 to 1930, after which the onset of the Great Depression saw production greatly reduce as demand fell. In these times of highest production, there was in excess of of timber sent out each year over the tramlines to Cheviot. The Yea Dairy Company was formed in 1891. Creameries around the district substantially increased the income of local farmers, and considerable amounts of butter were shipped to Melbourne. A major threat to the township was the Trawool Water Scheme (announced for implementation in 1908), which would have almost certainly meant the drowning of the town. Property values became depressed, and two deputations to the state