Rosedale is a pastoral and agricultural town 184 kilometres east of Melbourne via the Princes Highway. It is situated on the southern side of the LaTrobe River. Once a staging post on the Port Albert to Sale and Port Albert to Walhalla coach runs, it was the administrative centre of the Shire of Rosedale which extended to the east and included the Ninety Mile Beach. It is now part of the Wellington Shire centred in Sale.

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The Gunaikurnai People are the traditional owners of Gippsland. Brayakaulung people, one of the five clans of of the Gunaikurnai, live around the current site of Sale, Providence Ponds, and the Avon and Latrobe rivers; west of Lake Wellington to Mount Baw Baw and Mount Howitt.

 

The first European visited the area around Rosedale in 1842, and by 1844 the squatting era had begun. The large amount of land on both sides of the Latrobe River contained 24,300 hectares surrounding what was to become Rosedale was named Snake Ridge. To the west on the south side of the river was the Loy Yang run, while on the north side was known as the Rosedale run. East was the Holey Plain run on the south side of the river with the Kilmany run on the north side. The runs were unfenced and squatters employed shepherds. Rosedale Station on the north side of the river and about eight kilometres upstream of the present town of Rosedale was taken up by David Parry Okeden who is thought to have named it after his wife Rosalie.

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Around 1848 a shepherd's hut was built in the middle of Snake Ridge run, on the south side of the river. The first occupier of the hut was a Chinese man who was blind in one eye, his name is not known but he was colloquially known as Blind Joe and the area then became known as Blind Joe's Hut. That area is now known as Rosedale township.

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Find out more on Rosedale's history via the Rosedale Historial Society.