Will Kanowna Live Again?

KANOWNA ONCE BOASTED TWENTY HOTELS!

Kanowna Shows Signs of Big Recovery
Hectic Days of White Feather
Golden Valley Recalled

If you take the Kanowna road out of Kalgoorlie, you will travel for some 12 miles parallel with the formation of what was once a busy railway, to the remains of the thriving township of Kanowna. It was a town of romance, of wild and woolly days and nights. Kanowna now has one hotel, a magnificent post office building, good police station, warden’s offices and police court now used for the more prosaic function of a small store. All around are ruins of fine stone buildings and residences.
Nearby stand gaunt poppet heads, and piles of discarded plant. The rails are no longer along the track. They were removed to make an agricultural spur line, but maybe those rails will be needed again. For Kanowna is coming back. Kanowna was first called White Feather and was found before Kalgoorlie

The Old shafts – Kanowna

Kanowna was lit with electric light, whilst Kalgoorlie still had kerosene and slush lights. From 1898 to 1903 the Kanowna fields produced 44,527 ounces of gold from 66.162 tons of ore, 118,674 ounces of alluvial gold and 116,585 ounces from the wonderful cement deposits. It was a wonderful place, at one time there were ‘TWENTY HOTELS’ doing roaring business. It was a municipality and Mr. Nat Harper, who was manager of the White Feather Deep Leads was Mayor. Big mines included the White Feather Reward, Golden Valley and General Gordon. One of the most remarkable deposits, very rich In gold was the ‘Cement’ where the late Mr. J. Martin got great returns. The most hectic time at Kanowna was

when gold was found in the cemetery

The graveyard was all pegged out in claims and the Warden’s Court had five solicitors busy over 70 claims with 400 men contesting. At that time over 4,000 men were on the fields, most of them on good gold. Kanowna had a brewery too.

Hotels of Kanowna

Kanowna had Its daily paper long before Kalgoorlie, with Randolf Beach editor, and it had Its own sweeps with prize money up to £10,000. Of all the names which will go down to mining history few will eclipse that of Tom Doyle, mine owner, storekeeper, publican, leader In everything, and Mayor of the town, a genuine lighthearted, devil-may-care man. Tales galore all told of him – glib of tongue, swift of fist, an idol of the town. Many speak of him as ‘Old Tom,’ but he was only 37 when he passed over. He died by his own hand on the 24 Nov 1905, Marital problems were sited as the cause,  he is buried in the Kanowna Cemetery.

Part of the vast crowd listening to Father Long

Others on the field included Jack Johnson, Jack Martin, G. F. Seebeck, V. Hack. Mick Donnellan, H. Barry, Charlie Cutbush, Bill Benstead, Arthur Wilson, the two Honeys, Harry Wilson, Jack Mackay, Bill Ellis and we can’t forget Billy Minter (late foreman of the inquest Jury in the Coulter and Trefferne case and now located at Kalgoorlie). One of the most remarkable Incidents on this field arose from the statement of a clergyman, Father Long, in July of 1898 that he had been shown

‘A HUGE NUGGET’

shaped like a sickle, by two men, who had sworn him to secrecy. Tremendous excitement was aroused and finally after much public clamor he addressed an assembly of about 6,000 men, told them all he knew of his meeting with the men and how they seemed to have been coming from Golden Valley. A mad rush started for that district, but nothing came of it and there is no doubt that the young clergyman was hoaxed. No one blamed him. but he never got over the shock.

Kanowna Is the mystery land to geologists. It has baffled them since the first find and no phase of it is more remarkable than the big pug deposits, a kind of clay which has every appearance of carrying gold, but much of which is so fine that it defies the usual treatment processes.
Now Kanowna is coming back again. The old dumps are being gone over. Old claims are being prospected and more opened up. Pegs are everywhere. Diamond drilling and testing are in progress. Cement deposits are being exploited with ‘PAYABLE RESULTS’ and maybe Kanowna will once again be a ‘Wonderland’ with the railway relaid and the streets once more lined with shops. But whether land will ever go to its old price when £1500 was paid for a quarter acre block, is best left to the old-timers to guess.

Bill Minter – Veteran of Early Kanowna and foreman of the inquest jury in the Coulter and Trefferne gold stealing case.

What tales the old hands tell as they prospect today. For though Coolgardie was hectic, it never was lively as Kanowna. Tom Doyle once said, ‘To hell with Coolgardie, they drink beer, we drink fizz’ and

he knocked the heads off six bottles of Moet.

A devil-may-care lot they were too. One good Celt fell 40 feet down a shaft. He had been at St. Patrick’s day celebrations and his mates went down, expecting to find him dead. But when they arrived, they found their friend indignant. ‘What do you want?’ he demanded. ‘Can’t a man come down after his pipe without a lot of fellows following him about?’

Nathaniel White Harper – First Mayor of Kanowna

Nathaniel White Harper and his wife Margaret Jane nee Thomas, lost their son to Pneumonia in Kanowna. He was Nathaniel Robert HARPER aged 3 ½ mths who died on the 27th Dec 1899. he is buried in the Kanowna Cemetery. They were to have another son born in Kanowna in 1901 who they called Robert Nathaniel HARPER.