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 become the American president), various other mine buildings and the two-storied State Hotel, still stand, along with an assortment of rustic miners’ cottages constructed from iron, wood and hessian. Many of these have been restored and furnished to how they would have looked back in the old days, and are now open to the public.
The old hotel in Gwalia. Image courtesy of Mulgamutt / Wikimedia Commons
Big Bell
A more recent gold mining ghost town is Big Bell, situated near Cue, on the Great Northern Highway, about 620 kilometres north of Perth. Established in 1936, it was the home of the Big Bell Gold Mine which was in operation until 2003, although not a lot is left any more, apart from the ruins of the large hotel and a few other relics from the past.
Ruins of the Big Bell Hotel. Image courtesy of Calistemon / Wikimedia Commons
Big Bell does have a connection to Kalgoorlie in the Kalgoorlie-Boulder Museum in Hannan Street. The big red headframe over the museum at the top end of Hannan Street was originally at the Big Bell Mine and when it closed it came to Kalgoorlie/Boulder and was erected at the Ivanhoe GM. It is now know as the Ivanhoe Headframe. I think it must be the most travelled headframe in the goldfields.
This is how the Big Bell Hotel looked when it was opened in 1937. It is such a shame that it is a ruin now as it was a classic art deco style of the period and well worth preserving. The front had the curved balustrade renowned of this period and it certainly was a very large and grand building.
The Big Bell Hotel in 1937 – Outback Family History
Ref: Article:- http://www.weekendnotes.com/western-australia-ghost-towns/ by Carolyn Hoppping
Moya Sharp
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My father was born in Gwalia patrick John Grogan and his father worked on Big Bell mine.
Glad you mentioned that the manager’s house was designed, not built, by Hoover. He claimed he slept there before leaving for China. If he did so, he had no roof over his head, and only partial walls, as his successor, Harry James, was still ordering the joists and boarding two months after he left.
I visited Gwalia in March 2012 and stayed at the so-called ‘Hoover House’ with three of the great grandchildren of the original developer of the mine, George W Hall, a Welshman, like Thomas Tobias who sold the claim to him, Ernest Wiliams, the agent for Bewick, Moreing, and Harry James, Hoover’s successor as manager
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Gwalia (pronounced locally as Gworlia – but in Wales as Gwalia, with a short a) is an archaic term for Wales.
Glendinning Carlson and White, the original prospectors were working for a Welsh consortium put together and staked by Thomas Tobias, a well known Coolgardie shopkeeper. When his consortium partners back home in Wales failed to come up with their promised £200 each, Tobias, who had already spent £500 wanted his money back quickly. Though he wanted £10,000, he settled with Hall for £5,000 for the two leases. Hall meanwhile also staked out five more leases around the originals, and repaid his original stake and £3000 for machinery erection within the first month. From April 1896 to November 1897 the mine employed 100 men and was in full production under Alexander Wilson Castle, Hall’s manager and an experienced engineer.
Hi we found something at Big Bell that has the name Cath Swain on it and is very old i was wondering if you would have anything at all on this person it was found near the shop ruins
My father was born in Gwalia in 1917. He was the first member of the family to be born here. His older sisters were only little when they came out.
I was at Big Bell 1946-47.I had my 8th birthday there on 01/12/1946.Also spent xmas 1946 there.I flew up from Maylands aerodrome in Perth in a MMA double wing air craft and returned to Perth by train in 1947.I still remember the complete town and atteged Big Bell state school,grades 2 and 3.Am returning to Big Bell for the first time in 74 year this weekend 21-22 Sept 2019.
Andy Preedy
Geraldton