Henty Highway

Henty Highway is a rural highway in western Victoria, Australia, linking Lascelles in the Wimmera region, to Portland on the state's soith-western coast. It was named in honour of Edward Henty, a British colonist regarded as the first permanent European settler of the Port Phillip District (in what later became the Colony of Victoria), in the town eventually named Portland.

Route
Henty Highway commences at the intersection with Sunraysia Highway in Lascelles, Victoria and heads in a south-westerly direction as a two-lane, single carriageway rural highway, reaching Hopetoun before heading in a southerly direction and passing through Warracknabeal, before meeting Wimmera Highway in Dooen and contiunes south concurrently with it before reaching the major regional city of Horsham, where it widens to a four-lane road and runs concurrently with Western Highway through the centre of the city, before Wimmera Highway diverts west towards Naracoorte, South Australia a short distance later, and then continues south on its own alignment, through Brimpaen, Cavendish and Hamilton, before meeting Princes Highway in Heywood and continues south concurrently with it until Bolwarra. It continues south on its own alignment until it eventually terminates at the intersection with Madeira Packet Road in the southern suburbs of Portland.

History
The passing of the Country Roads Act of 1912 through the Parliament of Victoria provided for the establishment of the Country Roads Board (later VicRoads) and their ability to declare Main Roads, taking responsibility for the management, construction and care of the state's major roads from local municipalities. Hamilton-Portland Road from Hamilton to Branxholme, and Hamilton-Horsham Road from Hamilton to Brimpaen, were declared Main Roads on 16 November 1914, the rest of Hamilton-Portland Road from Branxholme to Bolwarra just north of Portland was declared a Main Road on 30 November 1914, Hopetoun-Warracknabeal Road from Hopetoun to Beulah was declared a Main Road on 14 December 1914, (Horsham-) Dooen Road from Horsham to Dooen and the rest of Hamilton-Horsham Road from Brimpaen to Horsham was declared a Main Road on 17 March 1915, and the rest of Hopetoun-Warracknabeal Road from Warracknabeal to Beulah was declared a Main Road on 31 March 1915.

The passing of the Highways and Vehicles Act of 1924 provided for the declaration of State Highways, roads two-thirds financed by the State government through the Country Roads Board. Henty Highway was declared a State Highway in August 1938, cobbled together from roads between Mildura, Warracknabeal, Horsham, and Hamilton to Portland (for a total of 263 miles), subsuming the original declaration of Hamilton-Portland Road, Hamilton-Horsham Road, Horsham-Dooen Road and Hopetoun-Warracknabeal Road as Main Roads; before this declaration, this road was also referred to as Hopetoun(-Lascelles) Road. It originally started from Calder Highway in Nunga, the junction south of Ouyen; when North-Western Highway was renamed Sunraysia Highway on 11 September 1972, and extended from Lascelles to Nunga, Henty Highway was truncated back to Lascelles. The southern end of the highway through Portland was changed in January 1987: from New and Percy and Gawler Streets terminating at the intersection of Gawler, Cliff and Bentick Streets in central Portland, to its current alignment along Port Road and the southern section of Portland-Nelson Road to the intersection with Wellington Road in Portland's southern suburbs.

Henty Highway was signed as State Route 107 between Portland and Lascelles in 1986; with Victoria's conversion to the newer alphanumeric system in the late 1990s, this was replaced by route A200 between Portland and Horsham, and B200 between Horsham and Lascelles.

The passing of the Road Management Act 2004 granted the responsibility of overall management and development of Victoria's major arterial roads to VicRoads: in 2007, VicRoads re-declared the road as Henty Highway (Arterial #6620) between Sunraysia Highway in Lascelles and Madeira Packet Road at Portland.

Upgrades

 * 1949 – 8 mi deviation of the Henty Highway as a result of proposed inundation following the construction of the Rocklands Reservoir dam on the Glenelg River, between Cavendish and Cherrypool.