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PLACES
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GONDUMRI
Gondumri is a village of 1,516 inhabitants in 1971 in Sakoli tahsil about ten miles distant from Sakoli. It is a railway station on the Gondia-Chanda Fort line which crosses the Bombay-Nagpur-Calcutta national highway, a little south of Soundad. Soft matting of sukhavasa grass is manufactured here by the Gonds. The village has a middle school, a dispensary, post office and rest house. A weekly market is held on Tuesdays. Gondumri was the headquarters of the Gond-Umri zamindari. " This estate lies in the centre of the Sakoli tahsil to the south of the Great Eastern Road. Its area is 28 square miles, about half of which is covered by forest. The forests at Koliwara contain good timber. The estate is said to date from the time of Nizam Shah the Gond Raja of Mandla (circa 1751 A. D.) and the family are Kanaujia Brahmans. One story is that it was granted on a lease for bringing it under cultivation, and another that Shankar, the founder of the family wrested it by force from the previous Gond possessor. This Shankar lived in the time of Raghuji I and a sanad dated 1775 A. D. conferring the estate on him was formerly in possession of the family [Bhandara District Gazetteer, 1908 ed. p. 205.]."
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