National Bank, Coolgardie. It was erected hastily in 1892 from local stone. Now a museum piece, it holds the record as Australia's smallest bank building
In the final decade of the 19th century, economic storm clouds were congregating worldwide on every horizon. It had been a most remarkable century, but the money markets from London to New York to Melbourne were nervous. The boom times had been very good indeed. Unprecedented migration from Europe's "Old World" to the many "New Worlds" had created a global melting pot of nationalities. Fortunes on a scale previously unimaginable had been amassed from resource-rich frontiers, but it all came crashing down as decades of investments and speculations started to run dry. What the world needed was another good tonic in the form of yet another mighty rush for gold.
Where was the next El Dorado to be found in these gloomy times? Fortuitously, it was Western Australia. In the decade that followed the discovery at Coolgardie in 1892, Western Australia was transformed by the wealth wrought from gold. Located almost 600 kilometres east of Perth, the colony's coastal capital, the wondrous new region was soon being officially referred to by Sir John Forrest's government as the Eastern Goldfields.
During the Roaring Nineties, the Eastern Goldfields were a magnet for thousands of prospectors and other adventurers. Most descended upon the region believing it to be an uninhabited, almost waterless wilderness. But, like the rest of the Australian continent, it had been inhabited for thousands of years by Aboriginal peoples who had developed an all-encompassing physical, social and spiritual connection with their land. The sudden influx of some 50,000 foreigners displaced and dispersed these people, changing their lives and their land irreversibly. The largest nugget discovered in the Eastern Goldfields wasn't unearthed until 1931, however. Called the Golden Eagle, it tipped the scales at 1136 ounces. Its discovery by 16-year-old Jim Larcombe Jnr. came at a time when the gold industry was once again experiencing a boom despite the Great Depression. Over 700 men rushed to "Larkinville" where the nugget was found.
Few regions in Australia can claim to have played a more dynamic role in shaping the history and fortunes of the nation. Without the unearthing of its rich gold deposits, Australia would have been hit much harder by the global recession of the 1890s. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the region's gold was one of the few bright points on Australia's balance sheet. The late 20th century resurgence of gold as a desirable commodity has once again made the region one of the single greatest contributors to the nation's export income. After more than a century of mining, the Eastern Goldfields has yielded over 49 million ounces of gold. It is now also Australia's leading nickel producer.
Gold at Coolgardie
Arthur Bayley and William Ford discovered gold in the early 1890s on Fly Flat in the region now known as Coolgardie Shire and by 1898 there was a town near the site with a population of 15,000. Coolgardie derives from an Aboriginal word thought to mean 'tree by the gnamma (watering) hole'. Coolgardie was once the third largest town in Western Australia, only Perth and Fremantle were bigger. Today it is almost a ghost town. The telegraph line was established in 1894 and the railway line came through from Southern Cross and Northam in 1896. Life, by anyone's standards , was very tough in this isolated region. Besides the illnesses associated with contaminated water, dust and lack of fresh food, dysentery was also prevalent and the Coolgardie safe, designed to keep provisions cool and clear of flies, originated here. It was a primitive but relatively effective contraption, a box with hessian sides kept damp by dripping water put to hang in an air current. The evaporating water Kept the food cool.
The Coolgardie area still produces exciting discoveries. The latest significant find in the area was the Happy New Year Nugget, weighing 97 ounces (300 grams), which was discovered by a lucky local married couple on 31st December 1990. The first arrivals at Fly Flat were able to extract an amazing average of three kilograms of gold in a few hours from the surface alluvial ore. Many towns had a Fly Flat, probably so called for the clouds of ever-present bush flies. Today Coolgardie's field is covered with scattered trees and assorted mining relics, among them 20 metre head frames, generators, tanks, boilers and dumps. Bayley's Reward Claim is marked by an obelisk.
The Marble Bar Hotel is an opulent two-storey brick building from the turn of the century. Its architectural style typifies the exuberance of those early days, just one of Coolgardie's 23 hotels where triumphs were celebrated with gold sovereigns and champagne.
Ernest Giles is remembered in the area for bringing camels from South Australia to Perth, but joined the gold rush and was dogged with much the same bad luck as he'd had on his journeys of exploration. He took a job in the mine warden's office in order to survive but died of bronchial pneumonia in 1897, aged 62. His grave can be found in the local cemetery.
A series of historical markers have been placed at various intervals within the township giving a well documented account of Coolgardie's history. Each group of markers described the immediate site as it was when Coolgardie was the capital of the Goldfields and is usually accompanied by a photograph from that period. A comparison of the photographs and the present day scene give a vivid account of the drastic changes and destruction which has taken place. An index to all the markers is located in the main street next to the Goldfields exhibition.
