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Kalgoorlie Gold Town
Kalgoorlie Boulder - site of the Golden Mile. Attention was drawn to the state’s south-east when Arthur Bayley discovered gold near Coolgardie in 1892. The following year Paddy Hannan, Tom Flanagan and Daniel Shea discovered alluvial gold nuggets near Mount Charlotte when they were forced to camp out unexpectedly after their horse lost a shoe. Hannan's find drew attention to an area which was home to an ore body that later became known simply as the 'Golden Mile'. Hannan's claim was not part of this reef. It was miners, forced to move further south, who stumbled upon this lode. Central to the discovery were a South Australian syndicate who, hearing the news of the gold around Kalgoorlie, moved from a settlement called Boulder, taking the old name with them to their new mining operation. By the end of 1893 over 100 leases had been taken out in the Kalgoorlie-Boulder area. The great challenge of the area was that the local quartz deposits, which are usually accepted as the rocks most likely to contain gold, did not produce high yields. In fact by 1894 the results from mining these quartz reefs were so disappointing that the field began to experience a small depression. Investors were less than enthusiastic and returns were not what had been hoped for. It was a Canadian miner, Larry Cammilleri, who discovered that the quartz in the area was not carrying most of the gold. Years later he recalled: 'I sank on the leader and where she junctioned with the lode material she
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Date Found: September 29, 2010
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