John Minden Caulfeild – grave tales

On the evening of Monday 20th October 1896, three men of Kanowna, Open Call stockbroker Thomas Moore Fletcher, 22-year-old photographer John Minden Caulfeild, and Richard Baugh, cycled out to Lake Gwynn and set up a camp on the western shore of the lake about 5 miles from Kanowna. They had hired ‘The Gwynn’, a flat […]

George and Jessie Cooper – pioneer profile

George Astley and Jessie Cooper from Carol Townsend (Great Granddaughter). George Astley COOPER was born in 1865 at Duck Ponds, Victoria. In 1890 to Benjamin Edward and Sophia Elizabeth. He married Jessie HASTHORPE  in Warragul, Victoria. Jessie was born in 1868 in Collingwood Victoria, the daughter of Jessie and Esther nee VARNEY. George and Jessie […]

Old Mulgabbie – over the plates

Western Mail 23 January 1941, page 9 – Dolly Pot Old Mulgabbie About 130 kilometres north-east of Kalgoorlie, along the Kurnalpi-Pinjin Road. In the year of 1898 or thereabouts following closely on the opening of the Kanowna Deep Leads, I struck the track from Norseman to Coolgardie accompanied by a mate. We had light hearts, […]

The Death of Father Long –

Kalgoorlie Western Argus 25 May 1899, page 25 THE LATE REV FATHER LONG A telegraphic message was published    the Kalgoorlie Miner of May 18th to the effect that the Rev Father Long had succumbed to an attack of typhoid fever in Perth on the previous day. The death of the rev gentleman forms the […]

The Queen of White Feather –

The Queen of White Feather A true story of the introduction of the first barmaid in Kanowna in 1896 by John Drayton. Smith’s Weekly Sydney – 2 September 1922, page 24 TOM DOYLE, licensee of the Kanowna Hotel (White Feather) in 1896, introduced the first barmaid to the fields. There were, women in the camp, […]