Mulgarrie Mine, Broad Arrow, Broad Arrow Goldfield, Kalgoorlie-Boulder Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Mulgarrie Mine	Mine (Inactive)
Broad Arrow	- not defined -
Broad Arrow Goldfield	Ore Field
Kalgoorlie-Boulder Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

The deposit was discovered by three brothers being Jack, Tony and Paddy Hayes, and Arthur Haisthorpe. (Some sources state the deposit was discovered by John Hayes). Paddy died in 1904 at Kanowna at only 35 years of age. They were originally from the Gippsland region in Victoria.

The site was initially known as Hayes Find, the town gazetted in 1897 as Mulgarrie, the subsequent company mine in the late 1890's aptly as Hit or Miss, while the modern abandoned open pit at the site from recent decades is also named Mulgarrie.

The prospectors dollied initially incredibly rich gold in 1895. A rush ensued, and soon one thousand men were on the alluvial patches. J.O. Oxley testified the deposit's riches, and signed himself as the government engineer, which was untrue. The public in London took it as the government's seal of approval in Western Australia, and invested heavily.

A company was floated in London called the Hit or Miss Proprietary. The name really gave the game away but they invested money into it anyway. A 20 head battery was erected before any development work had proceeded, and 125 men employed. Mine managers included Fred Rodda, James Henderson, A.J. Kennedy, and J.H. Youlden.

The Hit or Miss name was apt,for the mine contained a few rich patches and large areas of barren stone. The first few crushings were failures and the mine limped along until mid 1897, when it went into eighteen months of exemption. It was reconstructed as the highly capitalised Phoenix Gold Mining Company in 1899, but closed in 1900. By 1904, the last pub was being dismantled in the town. Prospectors later demolished the local baker's oven abandoned in the town, and obtained rich gold from the clay it was made from.

F.T. Buhlmann and a party of Boulder residents owned the battery after the mine's closure. This continued until the 1930's, when in 1933 they erected a 5 head mill. The mine was the occasional haunt of prospectors. Pratt and party struck a rich patch in 1908.

Hit or Miss was a large open cut, and underground mining in the 1890's.
The mine suffered a strike in 1897, when management tried to reduce wages. Gold stealing was rife at the mine, although by no means confined to this spot on the goldfields. Even during the 1895 prospectors stage, gold was going missing from the lease. When the battery closed and the mine was on an extended exemption, former employees hung around waiting for the mine to re-open. In the meantime they helped themselves to the battery plates, and some hobby mining within the unattended workings. In October 1899, when the mine was active again, a rich patch was discovered at the end of Friday's shift, but was gone when everyone returned underground on Monday morning. One miner left after a years work, and quietly purchased a full terrace of houses in an eastern states city on the gold that had been stolen.

There were several small prospector mines in the area outside of the Hit or Miss, including ones named Gem, Toledo, Christenden, Palm, Valentine, Morilla, Atlas, and Lady Clara amongst others. September 1897 telluride was discovered at the Lady Clara.

The site is 20 kilometres north-west of Broad Arrow. Travellers pass through the Golden Cities mine on the way. The site is presently occupied by a large abandoned open pit from recent decades, but more information is needed.

Gold is found in quartz veins in zones of massive carbonate alteration. This alteration is represented by porphyroblasts, veins and pervasive texturally destructive carbonisation. This is the result of two separate episodes of fluid ingress, the first producing magnesite, the second Fe dolomite. Mafic and ultramafic rocks reacted with fluids that moved along regional faults.

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References