Bridget Delia OATES – grave tales

The following photograph is of the headstone and grave of Bridget Delia Oates, who was the beloved wife of Richard Knight Oates, born in County Clare Ireland on 28 Jan 1873. She died at Kalgoorlie on the 17th Sep 1909 aged 37 years. This photograph was taken just after the headstone, ledger, and grave fencing […]

Merchants -v- Miners ‘when there’s a gold rush, sell shovels!’

“When there is a gold rush, ‘Sell Shovel’s’ was a term coined in the California Gold Rushes but it can be said to be true of the Gold Rushes in Australia. Many merchants selling everything from mining equipment to ribbons made more money than most miners ever dreamed of. The following is a snapshot of […]

Goolam Badoola of Bulgarbardoo –

Goolam Badoola of Bulgarbardoo was the only ‘Afghan’ camel teamster in Western Australia, to transfer from the declining transport industry and successfully developed a new industry for himself — a sheep station to which he gave the name Bulgarbardoo. Many of his countrymen, although tough, capable, and enterprising pioneers of Australia’s arid interior, stayed with […]

Medicine Corner Coolgardie –

The south-eastern corner of Forrest and Lefroy Streets Coolgardie was the scene of a transaction in the early 1890’s that gave the site the name of ‘Medicine Corner’. An old prospector and a young man fresh from Broken Hill camped on the site to which came an old man – he was ‘slab-chested, bow-legged, windmill-armed, […]

Lennonville ‘Warramboo’ Cemetery –

Following on from last week’s article on Lennionville: Lennonville (Warramboo) East Cemetery  – 1st. Reserve: 6842 gazettal date 16 Mar 1900 35 deaths 27 of whom were children. There are two cemeteries at the abandoned town of Lennonville which is about 10kms north of Mt Magnet. The cemeteries are located on either side of the […]