Author: Christine Harris

Vice President, FamilyHistoryWA

Ghostly Scrabble

One of the most frequent questions that is asked is how do we decide what communities are included on our list of Ghost Towns. Other frequently asked questions are – how do you choose what towns to work on? and when will my favourite town be included? So I thought I might run through the process from start to finish to help everyone to understand what is going on in the background.

So we started at least eight months ago now, with a preliminary list of Ghost Towns that numbered about 250. It was only ever a starting point, but it was a great way to kick everything off. We created a master list that included, not only the name of the town, but any/all alternative names. Some of the towns only ever had one name (as far as we know) but others have, over time, been known by two, three, four or even five different names. The main name for a community is known as Primary, while all the rest are known as Secondary.

A couple of great examples of this are included in our Pilot. Cossack was originally known as Tien Tsin, and by the traditional name of Bajinhurrba. In some records it is recorded as Tien Tsin Harbour or Butcher’s Inlet. And other records talk about the Lazarette (the Cossack Leprosarium). Goongarrie was originally called 90 Mile or Ninety Mile, as well as Roaring Gimlet and sometimes called Canegrass or Canegrass Swamp. When we are researching Cossack and Goongarrie, we have to also research all of the alternative names to make certain we don’t miss anyone. So the original list of 250 grew very quickly to 500 or more. Once we launched the Facebook group and started to get media coverage we received lots more leads, so that, by the time the Pilot started to actually collect data the list was nearing 700.

We chose the first four communities that are part of the Pilot early on. They were chosen because they represent a cross section of the types of community that will be found in the full list. But the question now arose – How do we decide the order in which we will proceed through the list? We needed to come up with a process that spread the workload evenly and was not influenced by any indivduals personal preference for any of the towns.

Step 1 – estimating how much work might be involved in processing any particular town on the list.

For this we turned to the State Records Office of Western Australia. SRO’s archives contain records of much of the life and history of our State, including our Ghost Towns. So we did a search on their site to determine how many records would be involved in researching each of the communities on our Master List. Of course, this won’t be the only place where we will be researching, but it gave us an idea of how big or small the task might be.

The tasks were ranked as High – more than 200 records, Medium – between 76 and 199 records, Low – between 26 and 75 records, and Small – less than 25 records. To spread the workload, we made the decision that each phase of the project would include:

  • High – 1 communities
  • Medium – 2 communities
  • Low – 4 to 6 communities
  • Small – 6 or more communities
Step 2 – Determining the order in which the communities will be processed

And now the fun starts. How do you choose the communities for each phase without fear or favour. We considered pulling names out of a hat, but then we came up with a fun game that made a very long, potentially tedious, task become fun – Scrabble tiles (just 26 tiles, no duplicates).

Starting with the list of High Primaries, we drew the first tile. G. And just like that we had the first town for Phase 2 – Gwalia. Putting the G back into the bag, we filtered the list so that we had Medium Primaries. Then we drew two tiles – B and E. And so it went all the way through the list until every community was prioritised. It took several days, but by the end we had a prioritised list.

New communities being added to the list

Since that was done nearly 100 more communities have been suggested to be added to the project. These will be considered by the Project Board and, if suitable, will be added to the prioritised list. Of course, the pressure is off as they will, of course, be added to the latest phases of the project.

Right now, we are working on the Pilot and it is going very well.

And, let me be the first to thank our wonderful Volunteers. You guys rock!

Search Party

I just came across this article in the Sunday Chronicle of 12 Dec 18971. It struck my funny bone and so I wanted to share it with you!! Perhaps, given the sombre nature of the background to the article, that says something rather dark about my sense of humour?

Steps are being taken (says the Morning Herald’s Menzies correspondent) to organise another search party to look for the man M’Innes, who was lost 12 months ago while journeying from Menzies to Donkey Rocks. He is supposed to have perished between Menzies and Goongarrie Lake.

This reads very curiously to us. There were search parties organised about the time that the man was lost and they were unsuccessful. Have the Menzies people become so thoroughly embued with the West Australian spirit that after 12 months they must institute another search? What use would it be, anyhow? If M’Innes perished, which we sincerely hpe he did not, the part could only find his bleaching bones – what earthly use would that do them? Now if they put a record in the archives of Menzies that in the year 3000 a.d., the mayor and councillors of the town are requested to institute a search for a certain man named M’Innes, who was believed to have been lost in the year 1896, they would possibly be doing future generations a certain amount of good, for the suppositionary bleaching bones by that time might have become interesting fossils, that is unless Menzies has fallen neck and crop into the background of oblivion, which does not seem at all unlikely as the world wags.

At the time of the disappearance, The North Coolgardie Herald and Menzies Times reported that Constable Sampson of Bardoc and a black tracker were searching unsuccessfully for the publican John M’Innes2. Mr M’Innes had made the trek through trackless and waterless country successfully on a number of previous occasions, but no trace was found of him after he left for Donkey Rocks in late December.

  1. “THE WEEKLY WHIRL.” Sunday Chronicle (Perth, WA : 1897 – 1899) 12 December 1897: 3. Web. 17 Feb 2024 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article257697205>. ↩︎
  2. “LOST IN THE BUSH.” The North Coolgardie Herald and Menzies Times (WA : 1896 – 1898) 30 December 1896: 2. Web. 17 Feb 2024 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article259770978>. ↩︎

How many ghost towns can there be?

When we started this project we had a list of about 250 Ghost Towns. It didn’t take very long before the list began to grow. As at today’s update, we have 628 (with a couple that we are holding in reserve pending confirmation of their ghostly status).

All three lists have been updated (alphabetical listing, by Region, by LGA) and the changes have been marked in the Alpha and LGA lists. There have been lots added with this update, so check it out! If you want to see what is new in your area, I suggest checking the LGA list out first, as this will tell you how many communities have been identified around you, and particularly will highlight where new entries have been added. Just remember when looking at the number of communities this includes a line entry for any known alternative names of a particular community, so that could mean that the same community is listed twice, three times or even more depending upon how many times it has changed its name over time.

A lot of new towns came to light following the broadcasts on ABC Radio and we are really grateful to everyone for their interest, enthusiasm and participation. But every day we are getting new leads, so keep checking back to see the updates and subscribe to this blog to be notified when there’s a new post.

If you want to add a ghost town or abandoned community to the list, please contact us.

What’s a State Battery?

As I have been researching ghost towns, I have often come across the phrase “state battery”. Without actually taking the time out to discover what this was, ideas that flittered through my mind included some sort of power generation facility or a method of providing fresh eggs and chickens in the outback.

Today is the day. I have found out what a state battery is, and I’m going to share it here because there could be others like me who have no clue!! And please, if I have made any incorrect assumptions or conclusions, tell me!!

Photo is from the Eastern Goldfields Historical Society’s digitized collection of 60,000 negatives1.

In Western Australia a state battery was a government owned and operated crushing facility that crushed the ore found by prospectors and dug from small mines in the area. The Western Australian Department of Mines were the government agency responsible for their operation. Some of the batteries were only operating for one or two years, while others were in place for 5o or more years. Western Australia was the only state in Australia to provide this type of facility.

A battery (aka stamp battery, stamp mill or stamping mill) crushes ore by pounding rather than grinding. Each stamp head consists of a set of heavy steel stamps in a vertical frame. The stamp slides up and down crushing the rock.
Batteries were gauged by the number of heads, hence a 10-head battery has 10 stamp heads crushing ore.

The first public battery (as they were originally known) was opened at Norsemam in 18982. Prior to this privately owned and operated batteries were the norm. In considering the legislation to establish public batteries, some last minute adjustments to the wording gave the administrators discretion to “assist” private batteries in certain cases3.

I haven’t been able to find out how many state batteries were established, but by the 1930s the total number of batteies (public and private) was close to 100, dropping to less than 50 by 1958. By 1982 a government review of state battery operations resulted in closure of all by 19874. In 1996 the battery at Ora Banda was rebuilt and reopened. Unfortunately, it never crushed any ore and in 2000 it was badly damaged by bombing and has not been rebuilt5.

As at April 2012, Wikipedia published a list of known state batteries in Western Australia (see below) but this list is believed to be incomplete. Do you know of any more? If you do please let us know at ghostswa@fhwa.org.au. While our focus, as always, is on the ghost towns, for completeness this list includes those state batteries that were located at all known sites, ghostly or otherwise!

List of State Batteries known to have existed in Western Australia
BambooLavertonNannineSouth Greenbushes
Black RangeLeonoraNiagaraSouthern Cross
BulongLindenNorsemanTuckabianna
CarlamindaMarble BarOra BandaTuckanurra
CoolgardieMarvel LochPaddingtonWarriedar
CueMeekatharraPaynes FindWidgiemooltha
DarlotMessengers PatchPaynesvilleWiluna
DesdemonaMenziesPig wellYalgoo
DevonMt EgertonPinjinYarri
DonnybrookMt IdaQuinnsYerilla
DuketonMt KeithRandallsYouanmi
Dumpling GullyMt Sir SamuelRavelstone – Peak HillYundamindera
KalgoorlieMullineRavensthorpe* Mt Jackson
KalpiniMulwarrieSandstone* Siberia
From Wikipedia article – State Batteries in Western Australia, 2012
* Updated 26 Nov 2023 with additional locations from Gone West by Geoffrey Higham.
Closer view of the head frame at a State Battery6

Sources
  1. Eastern Goldfields Historical Society, 2023. The Excelsior Battery at Bardoc. Digitized photograph EG-N-001-005. Accessed online 26 Nov 2023 at https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=662634742545097&set=a.456121176529789. ↩︎
  2. The Western Australian Goldfields Courier, Coolgardie, WA : 1894-1898. Norseman Public Battery. 10 Sep 1898, p.23. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article251211132 on 26 Nov 2023  ↩︎
  3. The Golden Age, Coolgardie, WA : 1894-2898. The Public Batteries. 11 Dec 1897, p.3. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article256754516 on 26 Nov 2023 ↩︎
  4. Wikipedia, 2023. State Batteries in Western Australia. Retrieved 26 Nov 2023 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Batteries_in_Western_Australia ↩︎
  5. Eastern Goldfields Historical Society, 2017. State Batteries in Western Australia. Video and notes accessed online 26 Nov 2023 https://www.facebook.com/kalgoorliehistory/videos/1489501291104966 ↩︎
  6. F.A.Sharr, 1983. Image Details – State Battery closer view of headframe. Digitized photograph from Heritage Council. Accessed online 26 Nov 2023 at https://inherit.dplh.wa.gov.au/Public/inventory/Image/5ad57a39-0d86-413f-be02-75b1657bc925 ↩︎

Billy Frost

The following article was published on page 1 of The Sun newspaper on Sunday, 21 November 1909. I first stumbled across the name of Billy Frost while researching Siberia where he, along with Bob Bonner, discovered gold in 1893.

That well-known prospector, Billy Frost, the discoverer of Goongarrie, Siberia and Burtville, and the pegger out of the Premier at Kunanalling, the third lease applied for on the Coolgardie goldficlds, is again amongst us after prospecting in pretty nearly every goldfield in the world. After a long experience and many hairbreadth escapes, in which his death has been duly chronicled many times, Frost has returned, and is of opinion that Australia is “God’s own country”. Anyhow he is going to have one more try. A syndicate is being formed of 40 shares of £25 each to fix up matters. Frost gets nothing, either in cash or wages, but takes 10 fully paid up shares, which are a pure gamble. Ten further shares are held in reserve for contingencies, while 20 contributing shares, £12 10/ to be called up, are being issued. Of the latter half have been placed in Perth, and goldfielders have now an opportunity to apply for the balance, five of which have already been placed. The Government is backing the venture with camels, and all that Frost requires is tucker for a six to twelve mouths’ trip, which, in the early days he could have got in the twinkling of a star. Frost is staying with Jerry McAuliffe, prospector of the White Feather, Yerilla and other shows, but is rather diffident of being interviewed by members of the fourth, or any other, estate. He starts outback almost immediately.

BILLY FROST. (1909 November 21). The Sun (Kalgoorlie, WA : 1898 – 1929), p.1.1

It seems like Billy was a bit of a lad, and here I may be reading too much into it, but the tone of the article suggests that investing your hard earned in his new venture might be a little risky?

In 1926, in Mackinlay, Queensland, Billy was shot by Mick Ford during an argument. He is buried at Cloncurry2.

Sources
  1. Trove. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article211133656 Accessed 16 Nov 2023 ↩︎
  2. Moya Sharp, 2023. Billy Frost – the seeker of shadows. Outback Family History https://www.outbackfamilyhistoryblog.com/billy-frost-the-seeker-of-shadows/. Access 16 Nov 2023 ↩︎

Our project hits the waves.

This morning I spoke to Nadia Mitsopoulos on ABC Perth about our project. About 2 hours and 8 minutes into the show. https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/perth-mornings/mornings/103084638

And this afternoon, I spoke to Andrew Collins on ABC Great Southern on the same topic. And this time it is only 7 mins and 9 secs into the program! https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/wa-drive/statewide-drive/103084654

The response has been amazing!! Thank you everyone!

Links

If you have been looking at our alphabetical ghost town listing recently, you will have started to see hashtags appearing in the right hand column. This indicates a quick way of finding content in our Facebook group. More and more are being added each day, especially where new information has been posted on Facebook.

If it is the town name that is highlighted, this indicates that a profile of the town has been written and you can link straight through to that page on our website.

Our aim is to continually improve the functionality of our website and to help you find as much as you can about the towns that interest you. You can help us by contributing either by email to ghostswa@fhwa.org.au or by posting on our Facebook group.

See you all soon, and happy ghost hunting!