Prior to 1870, there was little European activity in the Yarloop area. The inhabitants were members of the Binjarup or Bindjareb tribe, one of twenty or so Aboriginal tribes in the South West region of Western Australia, numbering some 7,500 people.

The first recorded European settler was Joseph Logue, who arrived in 1849 and selected rich land on the banks of what became known as Logue Brook. It was 30 years before other settlers arrived in the area.

Thomas Garlick farmed the land northwards to where Yarloop now stands; this adjoined the forest area, which was later granted to Millars Timber and Trading Company as a falling concession.

"It might be said that the first timber sales ever made from the Yarloop area, were made by William Joseph Eascott. He used to collect Red Gum bark, then take it by horse and cart to a tannery near Perth. William Eascott was involved extensively in the activities around the newly settled area of Waigerup."

In these early years W.J. Eascott was pit-sawing timber for other settlers as far away as Bunbury.

With pit sawn timber a hole is dug in the ground and the tree is felled over the hole. One man stands in the hole under the log and one on the top and together cross cut saw the boards out of the log.

Yarloop's association with the timber industry increased with the arrival of brothers Charles and Edwin Millar in Western Australia at Torbay, near Albany, after winning a contract to supply sleepers and construct part of the land grant railway between Albany and Beverley in 1884. This contract alerted the Millars' to the potential of the timber industry in the south west and they were active in its development.

About 1887 they sent a trial shipment of jarrah blocks to London for testing as street pavement in place of cobble stones.

At this stage a townsite had been surveyed near the Waigerup Siding which was situated where Kaus Road crosses the railway line today (when the Siding was located further north the 'i' was left out to become Wagerup.)

Harry Smith ("Big Smith") was sent with John Coghlan from Denmark by the Miller Bros. to investigate the jarrah potential north of Bunbury as jarrah was becoming a sought after timber overseas.

Big Smith chose a 300 acre site about 2 km south of the Waigerup Siding near the Government Railway line as the first mill site.

The site was chosen some distance from Waigerup because the company wished to retain effective control over staff and workmen.

Teasdale Smith met the Miller Bros. in mid 1894 at the refreshment room at the Chidlow Wells Station and as a result became General Manager on joining the company in 1895.

The mill (first known as Waigerup mill) was operating by 1895 on the site of the present day Yarloop Workshop.

(Shire of Harvey 1895-1995: Proud to be 100 p.5)