North Park was originally the site of the Grant and Lamont Company's crushing plant and tailings area. Older members of the community will remember the area being known as the Grant Park or Grant Sands. The mine closed in 1898 and remained in a state of old mine workings for 50 years, until 1948.
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"The Pug" was similar to many places around Stawell that consisted of the finely crushed residue of pay lode ore at the end of its treatment to extract its gold content.
It is variously described as sludge pug, slurry and tailings and for many years attracted men who took out licenses to further treat "The Pug" mainly by the cyaniding method. The sand hills on the "Pug" were a source of filling sand for many years and was used extensively for lining trenches when the new sewerage system was installed in the late 1950s. In July 1929 the Victorian Government Gazette stated that "Land temporarily reserved as a site for a public park in the parish and borough of Stawell is to be known as "North Park"
There was little activity on the "pug" or North Park prior to 1948 except that an area had been cleared for a foot running event for boys under 14 years of age. The event was called the "Pug Gift" and was run annually shortly after the Stawell Gift on the Easter weekend. In 1940 it was moved to Central Park and the last "Pug Gift" appears to have been ran in 1943.
Over the following years a second smaller oval was completed at North Park with a bicycle track constructed around the outside. During the 13 years from 1948 to 1961 interest waned at North Park and there are very few reports of activities in those years. The first building on the site was a youth hut. It was purchased from the RAAF at the Ballarat Aerodrome. This was replaced, because of continued vandalism, with a new pavilion and officially opened on September 20, 1964. An appeal was launched in August 1987 for new clubrooms and in March 1991 a building containing new clubrooms was opened. Shortly, we will see the latest version of the clubrooms.
The North Park complex today hosts tennis, skate boarding, football, basketball, cricket, netball, athletics, swimming and a fire brigade training track. The area can be traced back to an active group of men, Geoff La Gerche, Clem Hall, Roy Hurst, Gavin Jack and Hurtle Potter.