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You are here: Home / Archives for Sandstone

The Brewery on the Breakaway: Sandstone’s Beer-Making Marvel

20/06/2026 By Moya Sharp Leave a Comment

The Black Range Brewery, or the Breakaway Brewery as it was also known, began trading in August of 1907 with the proprietor as Joseph Vincent Kearney, an Irishman born in 1873 at Ballymoon, Co Carlow, Ireland. The manager was Michael ‘Mick’ Dempsey. It was located on the Maninga Marley Road, 4.8 kilometres from Sandstone. What […]

Filed Under: Books, People, Places & Towns, Ripping Yarns & Tragic Tales Tagged With: Australian History, Beer, Goldfields History, Sandstone, Western Australia

A Woman of the Black Range: The Troubled Life of Florence Menon

01/11/2025 By Moya Sharp 1 Comment

Run to Earth at Barambie: The Arrest of Florence Menon, 1906 Among the many stories that emerged from the remote settlements of the Western Australian Goldfields, few capture the character of the era quite like that of Florence Menon. In the days when sly grog shanties dotted the bush and the police waged a constant […]

Filed Under: People, Places & Towns, Ripping Yarns & Tragic Tales Tagged With: Australian History, Black Range, Boulder Cemetery, Cemeteries, Goldfields History, Sandstone, Western Australia

When Death Creeps in – a tale of a mine

27/09/2025 By Moya Sharp Leave a Comment

West Australian 6 January 1934, page 4 WHILE DEATH CREEPS IN A Tale of a Mine. By Ion Idriss, author of Flynn of the Inland. It is nasty, facing Death down below, whether under sea or land. Sam Ure worked doggedly though uneasily, for the earth was creaking, a subterranean moan from tortured ground hissed […]

Filed Under: Grave Tales, People, Places & Towns Tagged With: Australian History, Goldfields History, Sandstone, Western Australia

The Lone Jewish Prospector: A Goldfields Burial

06/09/2025 By Moya Sharp 2 Comments

Western Mail 14 January 1937, page 13 A Goldfields Burial. Amongst the present-day barrow pushers, there is not one who could put up a decent show against the old-timers. These men, representatives from all climes, pushed heavily loaded barrows over heavy bush tracks, and in many cases, no tracks at all, and put up with […]

Filed Under: People, Places & Towns Tagged With: Australian History, Cemeteries, Goldfields History, Sandstone, Western Australia

Outback Riches: The Rise and Fall of Maninga Marley

28/06/2025 By Moya Sharp Leave a Comment

The outback mining centre of Maninga Marley was situated some 27 kilometres southeast of Sandstone on the Dandaraga Station in the Black Range district. The Maninga Marley Gold Mine, from which the place takes its name, was found by prospectors Ernest Alfred Arundel and Matthew Dwyer. The claim was registered by Arundel Gold was discovered […]

Filed Under: People, Places & Towns, Sport Tagged With: Australian History, Goldfields History, Maninga Marley, Sandstone, Western Australia

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