Towns and places

The Eastern Goldfields is made up of hundred towns both big and small. Outback Family History would like to bring you a collection of stories about some of these abandoned towns which you may never have heard of. Some may only have been there for a few years and now very little remains of the small thriving communities.

Erlistoun – ghost town

Kalgoorlie Western Argus 13 December 1904, page 19 THE ERLISTOUN by V. Clausen Where is Erlistoun??? Latitude 27″ 59′ 03″ S Longitude 122″ 20′ 25″ East Mt Margaret Goldfields. Located 71.5 km north of Laverton at Borodale Creek once known as Mistake Creek. Erlistoun usually referred to as ‘The Erlistoun’ was never gazetted as a […]

Hinde’s Cash Chemist – grave tales

I was recently sent this wonderful photograph of John Lord Hinde’s Chemist shop in Coolgardie by Nanette Danks who tells me: My great-grandparents arrived in Coolgardie, I presume about 1894. The family legend is that Daisy Hinde (Alice Georgina, actually) was the eighth woman on the goldfields and Beryl was the only child for a […]

Lightning Can Strike Twice –

The coincidence of the following two events was uncovered by Derek Prosser, an OFH reader and contributor. He noted that on the OFH website, I had James Heffernan buried in the Black Flag Cemetery (30 km north of Kalgoorlie). However, this seems to be incorrect from what is said in the newspaper reports of the […]

Darlot – the last 100 years

Former residents of the abandoned townsite of Darlot, 130kms north of Leonora, returned to celebrate the towns centenary in December of 1994. Darlot gold mine manager, David Hatch, said that the earliest known Darlot Mining tenement was registered on December 3 1894. This is the date to mark the towns centenary. Plutonic Resources, which runs […]

A Vet in the House –

We have identified another Kalgoorlie House. This is the residence of Austen Harry Bradley, Veterinary Surgeon, 17 Brookman Street, Kalgoorlie. Sadly the house on this block today, although old, is not the original building in the photograph. Mr Bradley had an area at the rear of the building where he was able to hold animals […]