Latitude & Longitude (WGS84):	30° 44' 42'' South , 121° 28' 42'' East
Latitude & Longitude (decimal):	-30.74502,121.47842
GeoHash:	G#: qdw3h71ck
Locality type:	Mine
Köppen climate type:	BSh : Hot semi-arid (steppe) climate

Paddy Hannan was born in Ireland, arriving in Victoria in 1862, where he worked underground at the Ballarat goldfield. He then spent six years from 1868 on the New Zealand goldfields. After this he began gold prospecting across various Australian goldfields, eventually arriving at Southern Cross then Coolgardie. With Thomas Flanagan and Daniel O'Shea they explored an area north-east of Coolgardie.

In June 1893, they came across rich alluvial gold, and within a few days obtained the equivalent value in gold to cover several years wages. Hannan travelled to Coolgardie to register the claim, and since he has been the one out of the three credited with discovering gold at Kalgoorlie.

Flanagan died far from wealthy at Bendigo in 1900. O'Shea lived to 1908, and also died poor. Hannan spent some more years exploring the goldfields, then in 1910 retired at age 67 to Brunswick Melbourne, where he lived with relatives. He died in 04 November 1925, and left an estate of 1400 pounds. A statue of Hannan, with drinking fountain, is along Kalgoorlie's main street, also named Hannan Street.

A tremendous amount of alluvial gold was found in the area, by thousands of men who rushed the field. In time, the discoveries further south around the Golden Mile eclipsed Paddy Hannan's find.

A group of claims, including Hannan's reward claim, had been amalgamated and a company was formed called Hannans Reward Limited. A large open pit was developed, and underground shaft. A 20 head battery was erected. The company went through a couple of reconstructions.

The deposit turned out to be large, low grade, with small auriferous quartz veins. There were three parallel lodes, separated by 10 feet of country rock.

In 1906, three masked men burst into the battery, tied up the employees, and stole 400 pounds worth of slimes. One, Charles Best had befriended a local businessman, who put up bail, however Best dis-appeared.

Tributer Joseph Dobrigh was killed in a fall of earth in 1907, and Frederick Walter Taylor, also in a fall of earth in 1909.

In 1902, the company amalgamated with neighbouring Mount Charlotte, forming Hannans Reward and Mount Charlotte Limited. Operations continued at Hannans Reward until around 1923, but mainly by tributers.

In 1897, a tree was planted in the vicinity of the original gold discovery. It died in 1935, and was replaced by a kurrajong, planted by Hannan's granddaughter. This tree in turn was replaced on the 100th anniversary of the discovery June 1993. The map here marks this spot, although the Hannans Reward mine is across the road, bordering to the north of the Mount Charlotte mine.

Commodity List

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

Mineral List

4 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: 742372

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