Gold, Mine

August 30, 2018 8:37 AM

The Golden Mile at Kalgoorlie-Boulder, 600km east of Perth in Western Australia, was once considered the richest square mile on Earth. 60 million ounces later, this week marks 125 years of gold extraction, from the first lease registered in 1893 to the current Super Pit mine. This year the centuries collided when old tunnels and shafts caused a million tonnes of rockfall down the mine's eastern wall.
posted by valetta (3 comments total)

Does “lease” in this context mean that the land belonged to the Crown at that point and that's who the prospectors leased it from? Asking as a non-Australian. I was curious who the land and gold “belonged” to, if such a concept applies, before it came into the possession of the various miners and mining companies.

This map labels the current city (which was evidently only formed in 1989 from a merger of previous municipalities?) as being in territory associated with the Wangkathaa indigenous people.

Following links from Wikipedia I came to this page which says, Finally in 1890, Western Australia was granted Responsible Government, and the first Ministry was sworn in on 29 December, 1890. So Western Australia gained some degree of independence or self-rule around the time the mining started, evidently?
posted by XMLicious at 9:30 AM on August 30, 2018

Does “lease” in this context mean that the land belonged to the Crown at that point and that's who the prospectors leased it from? Asking as a non-Australian. I was curious who the land and gold “belonged” to, if such a concept applies, before it came into the possession of the various miners and mining companies.

It belonged to the crown, the prospector/company staked a claim and paid the fee for the lease. Then you pay a royalty (currently 3.75% I believe) to the state government on whatever gold you extract.

You can prospect on any public land that doesn't have a lease so long as you've paid your license fee to the government (my dad does this out past Northam with his friends and my brother in law in their free time) but if you want exclusive rights to a piece of land you have to pay the lease and the royalty on extracted gold.
posted by Definitely Not Sean Spicer at 10:29 AM on August 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

What a great map, XMLicious, thank you for linking it.

Yes, Crown land, administered by local bureaucracy. From 1890 Western Australia was a self-governing colony (it became a state at Federation in 1901) and early mining leases were issued by the Lands Department. The gold rush that began in 1893 precipitated the formation of the Department of Mines the following year.

See WA State Records: Mining Records and WA State Archives if you're in the mood for more detail.
posted by valetta at 11:03 AM on August 30, 2018 [1 favorite]