The original story of how Tuckanarra, the celebrated 24 ounce to the ton mine, was found in 1898, as told by Jim Boyd (one of the owners) was published in the Murchison Advocate, 27 May 1899, p3. The town site was gazetted in 1899 after a state battery was installed in 1898.
In the March of 1896, the weather in the Murchison was really wet and a mining warden was travelling. The bad weather stopped him from reaching his destination and on the way back to Cue he camped overnight in what was later known as Cork Tree Flat and then Tuckanarra. Either he or his companion, (a native tracker), picked up a small piece of gold near their buggy. Once they arrived in Cue the news of their find leaked out and several prospectors left Cue in the middle of the night to try to be the first on the scene. However, they were looking for alluvial gold and came back into Cue after a few days saying the find was no good.
Two days later Jim Boyd’s mate, George Moore, went out to Cork Tree Flat to see what the fuss was about. Instead of looking for alluvial gold, he looked for reefs. He came across a reef, broke a few pieces off it and brought it into Cue for Jim Boyd to look at. The quartz pieces had enough colour in them for Boyd and Moore to go back out to Cork Tree Flat for several weeks of prospecting, but not enough colour to suggest high hopes of finding a great find.
They arrived in Cork Tree Flat on Good Friday 1896 and Moore went in one direction and Boyd went in the other direction. Boyd hadn’t walked more than three or four hundred yards when he saw something that looked like yellow moss on a quartz outcrop. Of course, it was gold and that was the story of Boyd and Moore’s Tuckanarra mine began.
People of Western Australia's Ghost Towns 