East-West Telegraph Line -Eucla

Outback Family History Reader, Gary Cowans, recently sent in the following wonderful photographs from his PMG collection. They are reproduced with his permission. To build the East-West telegraph Line supplies were dropped off at the nearby Eucla Jetty. Then the Post and Telegraph crews began the job of scaling the nearby sand-hills before following the […]

A Racing Man from Tipperary – grave tales

FATAL MINING ACCIDENT IN THE PERSEVERANCE MINE – MAN FALLS DOWN A PASS. Richard Ryan, a well known citizen of Boulder, met with an instantaneous death in the Great Boulder Perseverance. Kalgoorlie Western Argus (WA : 1896 – 1916), Tuesday 17 March 1908, page 17 On Wednesday 11th March about 9.30 a.m. the deceased and […]

Southern Cross – Update

Outback Family History page for Southern Cross An OFH reader recently contacted me to say that part of the Southern Cross Cemetery register was missing. It only went as far as ‘P’. So today I have devoted the day to fixing the register and working on the data to make it easier to read and […]

Burley Bill and the Cemetery Rush – by Ted Rowell

Neil McLeod, with his partner, Syd Ward, had the licence at the primitive Exchange Hotel, a galvanised iron structure at the corner of Hannan and Maritana Sts, Kalgoorlie. Talk would turn to athletics and one of the customers who fancied he could run would be ‘chivied’ by Neil McLeod. McLeod would say “I don’t think […]

They Wished Upon a Star – book review

They wished upon a star : a history of Southern Cross and Yilgarn  by P.T. McMahon. Did you know that ‘MIRRABOOKA’ is the aboriginal word for Southern Cross??? YILGARNIA On that ancient sea bed of Yilgarnia, one of the oldest land surfaces in the world. Yilgarnia, timeless and mysterious, a land of such antiquity, that […]