Tallarook is a town in Victoria

Victoria (Australia)

Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 located on the Hume Highway

Hume Highway

The Hume Highway/Hume Freeway is one of Australia's major inter-city highways, running for 880 km between Sydney and Melbourne. It is part of the Auslink National Network and is a vital link for road freight to transport goods to and from the two cities as well as serving Albury-Wodonga and...

, 102 kilometres (63.4 mi) north of the state capital, Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

. The town is in the Shire of Mitchell Local Government area. At the 2006 census

Census in Australia

The Australian census is administered once every five years by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The most recent census was conducted on 9 August 2011; the next will be conducted in 2016. Prior to the introduction of regular censuses in 1961, they had also been run in 1901, 1911, 1921, 1933,...

, Tallarook had a population of 258.

Tallarook Post Office opened on 1 April 1861.

The town is known in Australia for the colloquialism

Colloquialism

A colloquialism is a word or phrase that is common in everyday, unconstrained conversation rather than in formal speech, academic writing, or paralinguistics. Dictionaries often display colloquial words and phrases with the abbreviation colloq. as an identifier...

, "Things are crook in Tallarook", believed to date to the Great Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

 and unemployed travellers seeking work.

The main North East railway opened though the town in 1872 along with the local railway station, and a branch railway to Mansfield was started in 1883, extended to Mansfield

Mansfield, Victoria

Mansfield is a small town in the foothills of the Victorian part of the Australian Alps. It is approximately 180 km north-east of Melbourne...

 in 1891, and Alexandra

Alexandra, Victoria

Alexandra is a town in Victoria, Australia. It is located at the junction of the Goulburn Valley Highway and Maroondah Highway , 26 kilometres west of Eildon, in the Shire of Murrindindi local government area...

 in 1909, before being closed on 18 November 1978.

The industrialist Essington Lewis

Essington Lewis

Essington Lewis, CH was an Australian industrialist.He was born in Burra, South Australia, on 13 January 1881. After joining Broken Hill Proprietary Company - now BHP Billiton - in 1904, he rose through the company ranks to become Managing Director in 1926 and Chairman in 1950, a position he held...

settled near Tallarook on his property, Landscape in his later years until his death in 1961.