Coolgardie
Once the center of Australia’s greatest gold rush, Coolgardie is now the nation’s best-preserved ghost town.
In 1892, prospector Arthur Bayley was told by a man he had saved from dying of thirst that there was gold to the east of Southern Cross, then the easternmost point of the gold rush.
Bayley and his friend Bill Ford set off and soon found a fabulous reef of gold which they named “Bayley’s Reward”. When Bayley rode back to Southern Cross carrying 554oz (16.8kg) of gold, the rush to Coolgardie began.
By 1990, Coolgardie had a population of 15,000 with two stock exchanges, 60 stores, 23 hotels, three breweries, many churches, and six newspapers. But, although Bayley’s Reward continued to produce gold until 1963, the rush had ended by 1914.
Now a quiet town of 2,000 people, Coolgardie has carefully preserved the best of its past. Its wide streets are lined by grand stone and brick buildings mixed with corrugated iron and timber homes, reflecting the wealth and impermanence of the gold rush.
The 1898 Mining Registrar’s office and Courthouse, a two-storey stone building on Coolgardie’s main street, now houses the Coolgardie Tourist Bureau and Goldfield’s Exhibition, the most comprehensive prospecting museum in Western Australia. The story of the prospectors, their lives, successes and hardships is told in displays, photographs and artefacts covering the town’s meteoric rise and decline. The building also houses Aboriginal artefacts, illustrating how the original inhabitants survived in the harsh climate.
Visual source: pleasetakemeto
