The first settlement was established in 1901 when H Blake founded the first timber mill known as Blake's Mill; later a larger mill was constructed and completed in 1913 by the Victorian Powell Wood Processing Company to harvest hardwood mountain ash in the Little Yarra Valley to fill its new government contracts. The logs were transported from the forests to the sawmills by tramway and from there to the railheads at Yarra Junction and Warburton. With renowned axemen like Shane Corr, who opened up the vanes of timber with no more than an axe and a team of bullocks to for fill his government contracts. The Post Office opened around 1904 as Blake's and was renamed Powelltown in 1912.