Barrambie Range Goldfield, Sandstone Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Barrambie Range Goldfield	Ore Field
Sandstone Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

Located 71 km north west of Sandstone.
Latitude: -27.47922
Longitude: 119.1697
Coordinates: 714381mE, 6958610mN.
References: Minedex Database from Geological Survey of Western Australia, 2006.

This entry refers to historic gold mines in the Barrambie Ranges, and a more recent vanadium/titanium prospect. The Barrambie Ranges run north-west to south-east, showing an edge of peaks along the west backed by a tableland on its eastern side.

Con Klug was prospecting in the area in 1905 and found gold. A rush of leases were pegged.

The Barrambie townsite had developed as the mines were opened up. It was a collection of shanties. The general impression from various newspaper articles is Barrambie was the 'wild' in the wild west. In 1907 there was an attempted murder of a miner. The underground mine manager at Barrambie Range Mine in 1908 was accused of attacking an employee breaking his shoulder and two ribs. The same year a miner died in the Nannine hospital after being attacked in the town.

A hotel was opened at Barrambie in January 1907 but closed a year later. In a bankruptcy hearing the proprietor described Barrambie as a very rough place with the hotel at times resembling a lunatic asylum. There was also alot of sly grog being sold and drunken mobs would at times take over the hotel smashing furniture.

Half the men were replaced each pay day at the Barrambie Range Mine as they were drunk and not turning up for work.

In 1907 several people were convicted of selling sly grog in the town, the convictions coming as the result of an informant. A lynch mob was organised. Under police escort a lady named Florodora accused of selling alcohol was the first to reach him. A newspaper report states: ' The irate lady gave striking evidence of her antipathy to the informer per medium of an umbrella and stones. In this she was joined by (the appropriately named) Mrs Savage who lent vigerous assistance'. Outside court later it continued ' prodding him vigerously on the ribs with their serviceable brollys, varying the fun by occassionally whacking him on the head and other parts of his anatomy.' Florodora was locked up and went to jail. Her shanty was set alight and burnt down while she was in jail.

The town may also be to blame for a plague of rabbits infesting the state. These had been released in Victoria and quickly bred to plague proportions, eating everything in its path as it moved across Australia. In an attempt to protect Western Australia from the onslaught a rabbit proof fence was built. A worker digging a post-hole at Barrambie discovered gold, and virtually all the workers abandoned the project to search for gold. The fence was eventually completed and the shanty town of Barrambie grew next to it. Residents would leave the gates open so rabbits could be more easily gathered on the Western Australian side for food. It was all the invitation the vermin needed and the rest of southern Western Australia was infested with the pests, and are still an environmental problem in the country to this day.

The Erroll's gold mining field is north-west of Barrambie. Near the Barrambie Range mine were several leases and small mines, which had been developed little. The Magnum Bonum lease was adjacent to Barrambie. The Barrambie South Mine, or Barrambie South Queen mine was closed in 1908. Sugarstone and Mystery mines were 6 kilometres north north-west. General Kuropatin mine was 2 kilometres south-east of Barrambie. Others include Dawn of Hope, Parker's Reward, Golden Hope, Trixey. Prospectors Heffernan and Swanson worked the field from 1906 and held out to 1926 before abandoning it.

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References