While researching details on the burial of a mining death for the Western Australian Virtual Miners Memorial, I came across the cemetery of Gum Creek. This was a new name for me so I looked into it further, I was also able to add another name to my collection of hotel names. The Book ‘West […]
Memories of Coolgardie and Wooroloo
05/11/2022 By 3 Comments
I was recently contacted by Helena Britt who vary kindly shared with me a copy of a section of her mothes memoirs. Her grandfather, Dr Robert Mitchell, was the first Chief Medical Officer at Coolgardie Hospital and the first Superintendent of Wooroloo Sanitorium, he was in this post until his retirement in 1941. Helena’s mother […]
The Priest and the Policeman
05/11/2022 By Leave a Comment
The Priest and the Policeman by Peter Conole (WA Police Historian, Retired 2013) with permission from the Police Historical Soc – http://www.policewahistory.org.au/HTML_Pages/Museum.html The above photograph is a fairly well known West Australian image, one which deserves a greater degree of fame. This fine relic of the Gold Rush days has been in the possession of […]
When there’s a Gold Rush ‘Sell Beer’
29/10/2022 By Leave a Comment
Coolgardie Pioneer 24 December 1898, page 38 THE MAYOR AND HIS ESTABLISHMENT “I don’t want no pioneering life, take me back to Collingwood.” This was the strain sung by an Eastern states poet who visited and was disgusted with these fields in the early days. Fortunately for the country, the majority of the old-timers, although […]
The Norris Family on the Goldfields
29/10/2022 By Leave a Comment
The Norris Family on the Goldfields by Chris Clark The journey from the east coast of Australia to the booming goldfields of Western Australia was a path taken by many from the 1890s. For most hopefuls the trip was one-way, signifying a migration that was irreversible, but for others, it was only a matter of […]
