The people of the Goldfields

The Goldfields of Western Australia was and still is made up of many people, from poets to politicians, from saints and sinners and everything in between. I hope to tell you the stories of some of these people either famous or infamous or just the ordinary folks. Sometime the most ordinary people do the most extraordinry things

Kurnalpi Jack – on his lonesome

The Sun Kalgoorlie – 12 June 1904, page 10 KURNALPI JACK One of the Early Day Men Always operate on his Lonesome by J Drake We regret to hear that Jack Reidy (Kurnalpi Jack) is, as our American cousins would say, playing in hard luck, and as it is proposed by Government to benefit, one […]

“Can I shave you. Mr. Smiler.” ???

From the pen of ‘Smiler Hales’ – Alfred Arthur Greenwood HALES (1860-1936) “You can’t whip a mining camp for novelties”. I was walking along Bayley street the other afternoon, feeling like a poet and looking like a tramp out of luck, when I saw a shingle hanging from a tent, which bore the information that […]

John Shrews TALBOT – grave tales

John Shrews TALBOT ― aged 70yrs, died on 26th August 1907, at Mulline, He was both a Battery Hand, Night Watchman  and a Journalist, The cause of his death was suicide, a revolver shot, self-inflicted during a period of temporary insanity, This was the verdict of the Coroner. Above -Copy photograph of Captain John Shrews […]

The 1942 Boulder Bombings – By Peter Skehan

BOULDER BOMBINGS “GHASTLY TRAGEDY” “TERRIBLE SCENES OF SLAUGHTER” “FOURTEEN MURDERED”

The Woes of Jimmy Wongawol –

Daily News 1 October 1955, page 8   – by Bob Chambers Jimmy WONGAWOL, anywhere within 100 miles north, east or south of Wiluna, is a man with a problem. He has too many lives — those of his 2 wives, 11 children and 7 dogs He loves them all in his own way, and in […]