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Carnegie

(3163, 12 km SE, Glen Eira City)

Carnegie is a small mainly residential suburb between Dandenong Road to the north and Grange Road to the west. Carnegie was known initially as Rosstown. William Murray Ross acquired 1000 acres (400 ha) here between the 1850s and 1870s. He built a sugar-beet processing plant on Leman's Swamp (now Koornang Park), hoping to sell land to local farmers who would supply the sugar beet. The unused factory was demolished in 1908. Ross also built the private Rosstown railway between Oakleigh and Elsternwick stations. Used only once, for the official opening on 14 November 1888, the track was not dismantled until 1916 and the route may still be discerned in the layout of streets and reserves in the area. Although Ross had sold some blocks in the 1870s and 1880s, few homes were built until the early 20th century. In 1908 the area was renamed Carnegie, reputedly in the hope that the American millionaire philanthropist Andrew Carnegie would donate money for a local library. In 1933 builder A.V. Jennings built his first 20 houses, named the Hillcrest Estate, in Carnegie.

Jill Barnard