Alexander and Margaret Roughead emigrated from Scotland on the "Ayrshire" into Port Phillip Bay in 1852, settling in various colonies with their nine children in the Victorian goldfields. Their son George Francis Roughead (born 1860) is documented as marrying Anne Elizabeth Johnson in the colony of Koorooman (now Leongatha) in 1889. This is the first example of the Roughead family putting down deep roots in the district, with Roughead owning his own store as early as 1893 when it was partially destroyed by fire and its location becoming his namesake of Roughead Street as early as 1910.