T Roberts Hairdressing Saloon (not Salon) Hair Cut Painlessly, terms cash! I just love this photo. Taken at Murrin Murrin (between Leonora and Laverton),Western Australia. Is this a cunning advertising ploy or did some hair stylists really hurt? Perhaps he also sold alcohol (to numb the pain maybe) and […]
The people of the Goldfields
The Goldfields of Western Australia was and still is made up of many people, from poets to politicians, from saints and sinners and everything in between. I hope to tell you the stories of some of these people either famous or infamous or just the ordinary folks. Sometime the most ordinary people do the most extraordinry things
Not Just a Presidents Wife – Lou Henry Hoover
11/01/2015 By 4 Comments
Lou Henry Hoover was the wife of Herbert Clark Hoover, the 31st president of the United States of America. There has been a great deal written about her husbands time on the Goldfields of Western Australia but very little has been told about his wifes achievements in her own right. During her time as ‘First […]
Goldfields Gallipoli Veteran – William John Rea (Ray) TONKIN
04/01/2015 By Leave a Comment
William John Rea (Ray) Tonkin was born on the 5th Feb 1895 in Bendigo Victoria but came to Kalgoorlie at a young age. He was a blacksmith and farrier by trade. He survived at Gallipoli and through WW1 and died 2nd Dec 1966 and is buried in the Kalgoorlie Cemetery. WJRT was a Gallipoli veteran. […]
Ghost Towns – Gwalia and Big Bell
04/01/2015 By 5 Comments
Although Gwalia is deserted today, it’s managed as the Gwalia Ghost Town and Museum, providing visitors with an insight into a historical period and way of life that has now vanished. Visitors can wander around the old townsite, where the original mine manager’s house (designed by Herbert Hoover, a young geologist who was later to […]
Hugh O’Donnell – WA’s Youngest Gallipoli Hero
26/11/2014 By 3 Comments
Young Hugh Brian ‘Hughie’ O’Donnell was the youngest West Australian to die at Gallipoli. He was born in Boulder in 1898 to John and Lily O’Donnell. He was living with his parents in Kanowna and when he signed up he was still at the Eastern Goldfields High School. The military authorities in Kalgoorlie passed him […]
