KOOLYANOBBING, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

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An agricultural and mining centre located in a pastoral district.
Location: 53 km north east of Southern Cross.
Origin of name: derived from the Aboriginal name of the nearby range of hills, Koolyanobbing Range, the name having been first recorded by the explorer C C Hunt in 1864. CE Dempster had named them the Barlee Range in 1861. One source gives the meaning of the name as " place of large hard rocks".
Brief history: in 1887 prospector Henry Dowd became the 1st white man to visit the area. He returned in 1891, claiming "the rock was without value". Dowd placed a transcript of his findings in a bottle and buried it on a hill at the foot of a surveying peg. The bottle was not found until 1963 on what is known as Dowd Hill.
In 1951, Broken Hill Proprietary Company (BHP) was granted iron ore deposits at Yampi Sound and Koolyanobbing in exchange for establishing a steel rolling mill at Kwinana, south of Perth. The town of Koolyanobbing was created to service BHP's Koolyanobbing mine developed in the early 1960s. The town was gazetted in 1965. Ore was shipped by rail to BHP's plant at Kwinana. It became a modern ghost town after its iron-ore mine closed in 1983; however, the town revived in 1994 when iron-ore and salt mining recommenced. Portman Limited now mines the iron ore but it is now railed to Esperance 578 kms to the south. Local ore has now all but run out so the company now mines iron ore deposits at Windarling and Mt. Jackson 100 km to the north and transports the ore to its Koolyanobbing operation.
Natural features: Mt. Manning Range (80 km north-east); Tin Hill; Turkey Hill; Lake Koorkoordine; Lake Polaris
Built features: Windarling and Jackson iron ore Mines