Tag: Kanowna

Phase 4!!

On Friday 29 August, 2025, we will move into Phase 4 of our project and that adds 16 new communities to the list of communities on which we are already working. The biggest community in this phase is Kanowna. If you have any information about these communities, or any of the communities on our master list, please contact us.

Kanowna 1904
Image from our project partner Eastern Goldfields Historical Society

The new 16 in alphabetical order

  • 4 Mile (Leonora)
  • Bootenal (aka Boolungu, Bootanoo, Bootanu and the Bootenal Railway Siding)
  • Buldania
  • Coonara (aka the Coonara Railway Siding)
  • Gabanintha
  • Gums (aka The Gums)
  • Hawks Nest (aka Hawk’s Nest, Hawkes Nest and the Hawkes Nest Gold Mine)
  • Jibberding
  • Jitarning (aka Geetaring)
  • Kanowna (aka White Feather and Cement Workings)
  • Kodj Kodjin (aka North Baandee)
  • Londonderry (aka Golden Hole Mine)
  • Pilbarra (aka Pilbarra Creek, Pilbarra Pool, Yandeyarra Hotel and Yule River, but NOT Pilbara)
  • Pingarning
  • Plavins (aka Plavins Timber Mill and Plavins Railway Siding)
  • Woolgar (aka Yundaga, Yundagga, Yunndaga and Yunndega)

Previous phases have covered the following communities:

Phase 1 (the Pilot)

  • Cossack
  • Goodwood
  • Goongarrie
  • Nugadong

Phase 2

  • Big Bell
  • Carbine
  • Dowerin Lakes
  • Eradu
  • Ferguson Timber Mills
  • Field’s Find
  • Ghooli
  • Goomarin
  • Gwalia
  • Higginsville
  • Neta Vale
  • Pindalup
  • Ullaring
  • Woop Woop
  • Wyola

Phase 3

  • Aldinga
  • Boyerine
  • Brown’s Mill
  • Carinyah
  • Copperfield
  • Dattening
  • Debdebin
  • Dinninup
  • Eucalyptus
  • Feysville
  • Galena
  • Ludlow
  • Mount Malcolm
  • Nalkain
  • Old Hall’s Creek
  • Rothsay

Bernard Leslie – Mayor of Kalgoorlie

Bernard Patrick Leslie, Mayor of Kalgoorlie 1917 – 1920 & 1927 – 19331

When Mr Bernard Patrick Leslie, a former mayor of Kalgoorlie, died in 1933 at the age of 692, it came as a shock to the inhabitants of the goldfields. Reading his obituary, this tall, imposing man seemed indestructible.

One of his many adventures in the outback was recounted. In the late 1800s, after walking from Northam to Hannans Find (later Kalgoorlie), he proceeded to White Feather (Kanowna) and then headed to Broad Arrow seeking gold. On this trip, he and a mate ran out of water and were found, days later, nude and delirious and ‘very near dead’. Apparently, his jet black hair had turned white, and his body was severely burned by the sun. However, Mr Leslie recovered, and invested in mining in the Bardoc area, and on further to Mertondale, where he did not do so well, then Mount Higgins (Mulwarrie) where he was the founder, and first president of the Pioneer Progress Committee.

Mr Leslie married twice and had two sons. He is memorialised with his first wife, Jean, in Kalgoorlie Cemetery.

Sources
  1. City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder History and Heritage, 15 Nov 2017. Facebook post retrieved 20 Aug 2024 from https://www.facebook.com/CKBHistoryandHeritage/posts/a-story-from-the-mayors-parlourbernard-patrick-lesliemayor-of-kalgoorlie-1917-19/1942082316052998/ ↩︎
  2. DEATH OF MR. B. LESLIE (1933, February 11). Kalgoorlie Miner (WA : 1895 – 1954), p. 5. Retrieved August 21, 2024, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article95021902 ↩︎