Yellow Aster Gold Mine, Yakabindie Station, Leonora Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Yellow Aster Gold Mine	Mine
Yakabindie Station	Station (farming)
Leonora Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

The owners of the Yellow Aster Gold Mine was a syndicate of four miners, Michael Coffey, brothers Frank and Gerald Sturrock, and Patrick Whalan. They were prospecting in the area in 1895, and registered the Pascoe Pride in 1898 and Yellow Aster adjoining it to the west in May 1899.

Frank Sturrock and Whalan joined them as co-owners in September 1900. A 10 head battery was erected around 1900, and small cyanide plant in 1901. They took up two more adjacent leases. Shortly after some shares were sold to Alexander McKenzie and Richard Hoffman. These shares were then bought and sold through several parties.

In amalgamating the leases and selling some shares, the mining syndicate had lost control of their mine, and it took three years to find these shareholders, and re-purchase the shares.

Adverse reports began appearing about the mine. Frank Sturrock died in 1903, and the mine's finances ended up being tied to his estate. There was a lack of water to operate the battery in 1904.

In 1905, Bewick Moreing and Co was interested in an option over the mine, but a scathing independent report about it put pay to that idea. Three months later the syndicate was declared bankrupt. From 1900 to 1904 they had mined 37 000 tonnes of ore for 27 000 ounces of gold.

On the 27 September 1905, the Yellow Aster Gold Mining Company NL was floated with 1500 pounds capital. The original Michael Coffey owned 500 shares, and Edward Daniel Hehir, a local resident was appointed mine manager. Only the Yellow Aster lease had been retained. All the others had been forfeited in 1906 for non payments. Tributers worked the mine from 1905 to 1915 producing 10 360 tonnes of ore for 5425 ounces of gold.

The company after this was wound up, with the remaining assets transferred to Coffey, and John Joseph Currie. When Coffey died, Currie worked it as sole owner for the next 10 years.

Prior to 2015, the site consisted of a few old shafts, a white area of remnant battery sands, old tank and minor rusting equipment.

Ramelius Resources acquired the Kathleen Valley gold projects in September 2014 and received approval to mine in May 2015. Open pit mining initiated at Yellow Astor in 2015 and mining was completed and the site rehabilitated in 2017. A satellite pit (Yellow Astor North) was mined in 2016. All this ore was trucked by road for processing at the Mount Magnet plant in the Murchison District.

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