Kalgoorlie first came on the scene when an Irish immigrant by the name of Paddy Hannan discovered gold in 1893. There was enough gold just lying on the surface to start another gold rush to the area. The surface gold soon disappeared and underground mining operations started. The miners followed the large vein of gold imbedded quartz and it took about 60 years to mine out this vein of gold yeilding about 60 million dollars in gold. I took a tour of this first mine. We crowded into a small elevator car (about 6 of us) and decended 185 M (about 600 ft) below the desert surface. It was very cool that far underground. Some of the tunnels were very narrow and only about 5 ft high.

As you can very well imagine the living conditions were very poor during this time. Many of the first prospectors to this area died of thirst due to the lack of water in the region or from disease because of the unsanitary living conditions in the shanty towns. When the large mining companies came in part of the miners wages were 2 gallons of water per week for a single man and 4 gallons if he were married. Water had to be shipped in and was quite literally worth its wait in gold. In 1898 an engineer by the name of CY O'Connor came up with the brilliant idea of constructing a resevoir near Perth and an above ground pipeline to carry water to Kalgoorlie. Under great critisism funding was granted and the pipeline was constructed. Keep in mind that Kal is 400 M (1312 ft) above Perth. When the pipeline was complete they turned on the water, but the water did not reach Kal immediately. Dispondant about the apparent failure of the endeavor Mr. O'Connor mounted his horse and rode into the Indian Ocean committing suicide. Two days later the precious water reached Kal. The pipeline had been a success and is still in use today. It follows the train line up to Kal and can be seen from the cars.