Mount Helena
Mount Helena, on the outskirts of Perth some 35 km from the city and to the north east of Mundaring, is a pretty bushland settlement in the Darling Ranges. The area is hilly and largely covered by bushland, left to naturally re-vegetate since it was milled for building timber and railway sleepers. The township now has many new homes and the bush is now retreating as a consequence. The area has a resident population of about 2400, and covers 22 square kilometres.
Bauxite was mined from the area just south (approx 500metres) of the township on either side of Sawyers Road. The land was rehabilitated but the scars are still easily discernible.
The Goldfields water supply pipeline runs in a sweeping curve just to the south east ( approx 400metres) of the township centre and from there runs between the two old Mount Helena - Chidlows railway alignments up to the Primary School, from where it runs parallel to the railway alignment and Elliott Road up to the first of eleven pumping stations of the Goldfields Water Supply system.
During the 1880s, numerous timber mills were established in the area. Richard Honey & Co. of Adelaide owned a mill here. Its manager, J.C. Port, named it Lion Mill, as the company's trademark was a lion. The mill was closed down when the land on which it stood was subdivided as town lots, however the railway had reached the area a few years earlier and a siding had been named Lion's Mill. The township and siding were renamed Mount Helena in 1924. The chief instigators in the hunt for a new name were the local Progress Association whose first choice, "Hillcrest" had been rejected by the authorities because of a duplication in New South Wales. The next suggestion, "Mount Helena" was more successful, indicative of the terrain and because the suburb was situated centrally in the Helena District.
The old railway line embankments for the second Perth to Goldfields railway alignment can still be seen in the town, and are now bush trails now. An older first Goldfields railway alignment embankment has been removed entirely, however it was located where Pioneer Park now stands. The first railway alignment was used for a line that ran from Sawyers Valley, across the main township valley. Both of these old railway alignments meet near the Primary School. The Stoneville - Mount Helena - Chidlows railway line was part of the second Goldfields railway alignment.
