The Hill Brothers in Coolgardie – grave tales

Daily News Perth – Friday 30 November 1894, page 2 Admissions to Coolgardie Hospital – Adolphus Hill, aged 23, a native of Kyneton, Victoria, had low fever and exhaustion, he was delirious when admitted, and everything possible was done for him, but he never rallied and quickly succumbed. Birth Registration in Victoria for Adolphus and […]

Triple Tragedy at the Golden West:

In 2013, a lady by the name of Margaret Sanders, contacted me about including her uncle Ralph Douglas Young (Joe), on the Western Australian Virtual Miners Memorial. She has seen our appeal for family members to come forward to provide additional information about miners names to be engraved on the memorial at the WA Museum […]

They drank Champagne out of pint pots!

GLIMPSES of life in Coolgardie in those glamorous days when the “old camp” was a magnet to adventurous folk from far and wide, can be interestingly recalled by 89year old Mrs. Julie Kennedy, who resides in Stirling-street, Perth. Picture scions of wealthy English families rubbing shoulders with miners from the Bendigo diggings, thousands of gold […]

The Man who Invented “The Old Pioneers” – a verse

They had to be born, for in early Coolgardie We had to appear to our folks in the East As patient explorers, courageous and hardy, Facing fortune and famine, wild blizzard and beast; We had to account in the pannikin papers, For whiskers that covered us well to the waist, And our penchant persistent for […]

“The Challenge’ for the ‘Belle of Coolgardie’

In the days of early Coolgardie it was often the case that when a disagreement occurred it was settled in the time honored way by bashing each other senseless.  This was welcomed by the general population who were somewhat starved for entertainment. It also ensured your ‘disagreement’ was well and truly ‘settled’. Coolgardie drew to […]