BigginScott Greater Dandenong Office

The municipal area of Springvale was originally part of the Dandenong shire and is at the doorstep of the Dandenong Ranges National Park.

The area contained natural springs which were a permanent water source for stock and travellers moving between Melbourne and Dandenong, giving rise to the suburb’s name. In the 1850s, a Spring Vale Hotel was built near a newly surveyed route between Oakleigh and Dandenong at what is now the intersection of Princes Highway and Springvale Road. However, it did not develop into a settlement.

The first Springvale Post Office opened on 12 September 1864 and closed in 1892. This office had been superseded by Springvale Railway Station office (opened 1887) which was renamed Springvale in 1902. A Springvale North Post Office was also open between 1946 and 1978.

In 1886, land was subdivided near the railway station and the area began to grow. By the 1920s the Spring Vale community had a lodge, brass band, a recreation reserve, a mechanics’ institute, a few shops and some houses in the township. A picture theatre opened in 1924. At the outbreak of the second world war Springvale was a pastoral, residential and industrial township with market gardens in the surrounding areas. Sand extraction industries were active, lasting until the 1990s.

The clearest indication of postwar residential growth occurred in the early 1960s when Rockman’s Shopwell department store was built, and later when shops on the east side of Springvale Road were removed for road widening. Housing growth was rapid and estates with made roads and services replaced unserviced subdivisions. The new Sandown racecourse site was opened in 1961 for both horse and motor-car racing.