Kalgoorlie-Boulder History

History

Long-time prospector Paddy Hannan set out from Coolgardie in search of another gold strike, and proved that sometimes beggars can be choosers. He stumbled across the surface gold that sparked the 1893 gold rush, and inadvertently chose the site of Kalgoorlie for a township.

When surface sparkles subsided, the miners dug deeper, extracting the precious metal from the rocks by costly and complex processes. Kalgoorlie quickly prospered, and the town’s magnificent public buildings, constructed at the end of the 19th century, are evidence of its fabulous wealth.

Despite its slow decline after WWI, Kal is still the largest producer of gold in Australia, with giant mining conglomerates operating open-cut mines in the Golden Mile. Gone are the old headframes and corrugated-iron shacks – instead, enormous homes on the approach to Kalgoorlie attest to the ongoing profitability of modern mining.