Oakville was settled late in the 19th century. Timber cutting being
the principle activity that supported the early settlers. The early documentation
of the area described the country as "middlings forest" being treed with ironbarks,
grey box with forest red gums along the creeks. However the main timber was
the She-Oak after which the area was named. The timber cutters forever marked
the future layout of Oakville as their tracks along the ridges to extract timber
from the slopes became the roads of today. Some semblance of the original countryside
can be gauged from the virgin areas in the Scheyville National Park, proclaimed
in 1998 preserving the old army site for posterity.
Oakville has no commercial centre but the geographical heart is the Oakville
Public School that had just celebrated its centenary. Diagonally opposite the
school is "Hanckel Road Automotive", a modern business hidden in anachronistic
premises, taking its name from one of the original families. Just down the road
from the school are "Eclections" antiques and furniture restorations in what
remains of Oakville's major brush with any manufacturing industry the old fan
factory. Oakville has become a dress circle Hawkesbury suburb with Sydneysiders
wishing a quiet country lifestyle with in reasonable travelling distance of
the big smoke mingling into the quiet rural landscape.
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