Latitude & Longitude (WGS84):	30° 50' 52'' South , 121° 40' 4'' East
Latitude & Longitude (decimal):	-30.84788,121.66787
GeoHash:	G#: qdw8887f4
Locality type:	Mine
Köppen climate type:	BSh : Hot semi-arid (steppe) climate

The night was hot and sultry
The rattler was coming fast
A crowd of hoboes behind the sleepers lay
And boarded her as she passed
But one poor soul was left behind
Out on the burning plain
No water could he find
And died in hunger and in pain.

So was a poem written on the long gone station shed at the Golden Ridge siding on the Trans Australian Railway Line. The rest of the station was covered in graffiti, proving this nuisance is not a recent advent. In times past the siding was used to gain free passage on goods trains heading to and from the Eastern States.

Golden Ridge was also the name of a small town at the site in the early Twentieth Century. The name also at the time of writing refers to a nickel exploration project in the area.

This listing refers to the gold mine, 20 kilometres south-east of Kalgoorlie, and bordering the north side of the railway line. A modern abandoned open pit exists at the site, which more information is needed about.

Golden Ridge and Waterfall were two separate groups of leases in the area, mined in conjunction by companies from around 1897 to 1918. The Waterfall leases became paramount eventually over the old Golden Ridge leases.

Golden Ridge is a parched desert with no waterfalls within several hundred kilometres. Local folklore states a party of Italian prospectors were in the area in 1895. One stuck his water bag on a tree twig, later returning only to find the twig had pierced the bag, with all the water having drained out. In broken English he shouted to his mates 'water fall'. On picking up the bag he spied gold rendered more observable by the water that had fallen on it.

Various lease numbers were named covering up to 144 acres, including GML 2310E, 2312E, 2314E, 3908E, 3910E, 3912E, 4033E, 4055E, 4327E. The main shaft reached an eventual depth of 500 feet, however there were several shafts across the leases, showing gold, galena, and arsenopyrite.

The original prospectors worked the Golden Ridge mine for a time, joined by P. Whelan, J.J. Cassidy, and others. Largely only potholes were sunk on chloritic schist and ironstone, showing colour and specks of gold through the rock.

An English company was formed called the Golden Ridge Proprietary, which operated until around 1901 at the mine. It was then taken over by a local syndicate in 1902, with a capital of 31 200 pounds.

To 1906 the mine had produced 54 000 tonnes of ore yielding 30 120 ounces averaging 11 dwt. In 1907 the Golden Ridge Gold Mining Company was floated with 50 000 capital. To September 30 1914 it had produced 219 980 tonnes of ore for 480 941 pounds money-wise, profits 152 841 pounds, of which 136 738 pounds had been distributed to shareholders as dividends. Subsequent prospectors to 1932 had removed 322 tonnes of ore for 552 ounces.

In August 1906, the night watchman Jacobson, was bound by three masked robbers one night in the battery house. His hands were tied behind his back, and looked over by one man, while the others sought the amalgam. Jacobson stated he was cold and requested to be moved nearer the boilers. On doing so he was able to get his hands free and blow the mine whistle. This sent the robbers fleeing.

The company was reconstructed in 1908, needing more working capital. What hadn't helped this cause, was the new mine manager finding no development work had been carried out, and ore reserves were depleted. Gold assay reports from drilling had been forged, and developmental costs purposefully understated. R.J. Richardson was mine manager between 1907 to 1911.

The Golden Ridge Gold Mining Company suffered a slow death at the mine. Troubles were first noted in 1914. The company was delisted off the Adelaide Stock Exchange in 1915. Calls were made by shareholders to wind up the company, which initially fell on death ears. By 1918, the company was wound up.

These events had been pre-empted by a strike of its 120 employees, over two Italian miners being employed. The company stated they were having trouble finding suitably qualified men, the Italians having worked on the Golden Mile for many years, and were members of the union.

Kalgoorlie was a hot-bed for riots from the late 1890's into the 1930's, some politically motivated and some race related, fuelled by copious alcohol from hotels on every corner, a lack of understanding of the world outside the Anglo sphere, and a wont to resort to easy violence to settle disputes. The southern Europeans were not entirely blameless either. This culminated in 1934, with a major riot between Anglo's and southern Europeans, resulting in 22 houses being destroyed, several public buildings burned to the ground, some deaths, and eighty people being arrested.

Race riots through Australian history tend to motivate moderate elements into action to take over. Much of Australia was horrified, and may have led in part to a greater acceptance of large scale southern European immigration into Australia in the 1950's.

Upon the company leaving, the mine was purchased by Charles de Bernales and his Western Machinery scrap metal company. The mine was let on tribute, and these men then purchased the mine.

In 1935, the Golden Ridge W.A. Goldmines NL was floated in Adelaide, but no further information could be found. It does state ore had been sent for crushing the prior six months from an open cut.

One piece of machinery from the early days of the mine remains. The No. 215 locomotive was purchased in 1905 to cart ore at the mine. It was built by Stahlbahnwerke Freudenstien of Berlin Germany. The small locomotive looks very similar to those found at Disneyland. After the mine closed down it was purchased by the Western Machinery scrap metal company of Kalgoorlie. Somehow it survived and in the 1980's was being used at the Bennett Brook Railway at Whiteman Park, a pioneer theme park of sorts, on the outskirts of Perth. In 1993, well known Australian entrepreneur Dick Smith purchased the locomotive, which is now used on his Bowylie property near Canberra, to transport guests from his airstrip to the house.

Commodity List

This is a list of exploitable or exploited mineral commodities recorded at this locality.

Mineral List

6 valid minerals.

Rock Types Recorded

Regional Geology

This geological map and associated information on rock units at or nearby to the coordinates given for this locality is based on relatively small scale geological maps provided by various national Geological Surveys. This does not necessarily represent the complete geology at this locality but it gives a background for the region in which it is found.

Click on geological units on the map for more information. Click here to view full-screen map on Macrostrat.org

Quaternary 0 - 2.588 Ma ID: 881265

colluvium 38491 Age: Pleistocene (0 - 2.588 Ma) Description: Colluvium and/or residual deposits, sheetwash, talus, scree; boulder, gravel, sand; may include minor alluvial or sand plain deposits, local calcrete and reworked laterite Comments: regolith; synthesis of multiple published descriptions Lithology: Regolith Reference: Raymond, O.L., Liu, S., Gallagher, R., Zhang, W., Highet, L.M. Surface Geology of Australia 1:1 million scale dataset 2012 edition. Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia). [5]

Neoarchean - Mesoarchean 2500 - 3200 Ma ID: 3187518

Archean volcanic rocks Age: Archean (2500 - 3200 Ma) Comments: Yilgarn Craton Lithology: Greenstone belt; mafic-ultramafic volcanic rocks Reference: Chorlton, L.B. Generalized geology of the world: bedrock domains and major faults in GIS format: a small-scale world geology map with an extended geological attribute database. doi: 10.4095/223767. Geological Survey of Canada, Open File 5529. [154]

Data and map coding provided by Macrostrat.org, used under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License

References

External Links