The Golden Mile

For more than 100 years the mines of the Kalgoorlie Goldfields have produced the majority of Australias golden wealth.

The discovery of gold in the Kalgoorlie Goldfields resulted in the influx of thousands of men, who poured into the flats and gullies and brought the red earth alive in a frenzied search for alluvial gold.

Not only was the find Australias most significant, it was one of the worlds last great gold rushes, and the vital catalyst which secured the future economic and social development of Western Australia.

The development of the Kalgoorlie Goldfields region links back to the great Australian explorers of the 1860s. Seeking pastoral land they rode over the gold bearing earth oblivious to the riches which lay on the ground beneath them.

Bayley and Ford registered the regions first gold claim in 1892. Within weeks, news of the find saw Fly Flat in Coolgardie covered with tents as diggers swarmed to try their luck.

Not long after, three down-on-their-luck Irishmen, Flanagan, Hannan and Shea, stumbled across 100 ounces of alluvial nuggets close to what has since been coined the Golden Mile - the richest square mile of gold bearing earth ever discovered!

The goldrush that followed Hannans claim on June 17, 1893, was staggering. Men travelled almost 600km across ground that had no reasonable roads, without water supplies or facilities to live in shacks made of hessian, canvas, old packing cases and corrugated iron in their search for golden riches.

Many came unprepared for the harsh living conditions, the inadequate food, scarcity of water, lack of sanitation and few medical supplies. Thousands died from thirst, starvation and disease from drinking contaminated water. It was a time when water was more precious than gold!

Small towns and water holes sprang up throughout the region as the search for gold widened. Massive transportation of food, water and materials was undertaken by Afghan camel teams, affectionately called Ships of the Desert. Railways were built, and bicycle couriers pedalled hundreds of miles delivering news and urgent telegrams.

With this new found prosperous economy and population, the Western Australian Government solved the water shortages with the construction of a world first 563km water pipeline from Mundaring Weir near Perth to Kalgoorlie ensuring the region continued to prosper.

At the continuing news of gold strikes London investors poured millions of capital into gold-mining companies.

Within a few short years the early alluvial prospecting and dry blowing had given way to mine shafts and full-scale underground mines, and hundreds of mining companies were floated to speculate on rich reefs.

The Goldfields became the economic and political centre of Western Australia. In fact it was the Goldfields yes vote on July 31 1900 that was pivotal in ensuring the Federation of Australia.

Huge underground mines were established in the Golden Mile with names such as the Great Boulder, Golden Horseshoe, Ivanhoe, Lake View and Star. Many of the shafts went down more than 600 metres.

Headframes sprouted along with the tailings and mullock dumps that became symbols of the Goldfields. Thousands of trees were clear-felled for the woodlines that supplied fuel to the mining industry boilers, power for water pumping stations, and wood for underground shafts. Many of the woodlines are still visible.

Today, the Golden Mile is the famous Super Pit, one of the largest open cut gold mining operations in the world.

Visitors are able to view this enormous mining project from a public lookout provided by KCGM. The open pit operation is currently 3km long 1.4km wide and 370m deep. An important development that occurred with the shift from underground to open pit mining, and the proximity of communities to mine operations, has been the mining industrys focus on sound environmental practices.

This has resulted in mining companies conducting regular noise surveys, dust sampling, monitoring of air quality and the introduction of major revegetation programs such as KCGMs award winning Greening the Golden Mile initiative.