Broad Arrow is a

ghost town Ghost Town(s) or Ghosttown may refer to: * Ghost town, a town that has been abandoned Film and television * ''Ghost Town'' (1936 film), an American Western film by Harry L. Fraser * ''Ghost Town'' (1956 film), an American Western film by All ...

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

, located 38 km north of Kalgoorlie and 633 km east of

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth i ...

. It is on the Kalgoorlie to Leonora Road.

History

Initially called Kurawah, this was where

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...

was first discovered in 1893, triggering a

gold rush A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, New ...

in the region north of Kalgoorlie. The Broad Arrow Goldfield was gazetted on 11 November 1896, and in 1897 the municipality of Kurawah was declared. The town derives its name from the markers, in the shape of a

broad arrow A broad arrow, of which a pheon is a variant, is a stylised representation of a metal arrowhead, comprising a tang and two barbs meeting at a point. It is a symbol used traditionally in heraldry, most notably in England, and later by the Britis ...

, left on the ground by a miner, Reison, who left them to direct his friends who were following him to a gold discovery he had made. His mine was also named ''Broad Arrow''. Extensions to the

Eastern Goldfields Railway The Eastern Goldfields Railway was built in the 1890s by the Western Australian Government Railways to connect Perth with the Eastern Goldfields at Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie. History The Eastern Railway opened in stages from Perth to Nort ...

line from Kalgoorlie to

Menzies Menzies is a Scottish surname, with Gaelic forms being Méinnearach and Méinn, and other variant forms being Menigees, Mennes, Mengzes, Menzeys, Mengies, and Minges. Derivation and history The name and its Gaelic form are probably derived f ...

was begun in August 1897, and reached Broad Arrow on 6 November the same year. The railway station included a passenger platform. At its peak the town had 15,000 residents, eight hotels and two breweries as well as a stock exchange. Other facilities included a hospital, three churches, Salvation Army Hall, a chemist, two banks, police station with resident magistrate, a mining registrar, a post office, a cordial factory, six grocery stores and two draperies, and

blacksmith A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. tinsmith). Blacksmiths produce objects such as gates, gr ...

and bakers' shops. The town was the administrative centre for smaller settlements in the area including

Ora Banda Ora Banda is a townsite and locality in the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia located north-west of Kalgoorlie. The town name is Spanish meaning "band of gold". It includes several operational mines and at the 2016 Australian census ...

, Smithfield, Black Flat, White Flag and Grant's Patch. It had its own newspaper, '' The Broad Arrow Standard'', from 1896 to 1899. A dam was built for the Public Works Department in Broad Arrow in 1897. The population of the town was 337 (218 males and 119 females) in 1898. By the 1920s the gold had run out and the town had been abandoned. The movie ''

Nickel Queen ''Nickel Queen'' is a 1971 Australian comedy film starring Googie Withers and directed by her husband John McCallum. The story was loosely based on the Poseidon bubble, a nickel boom in Western Australia in the late 1960s, and tells of an outback ...

'' was filmed here in 1971, using the town's remaining hotel, the Broad Arrow Tavern. The Tavern remains open for travellers today and is noted for having almost every wall covered with handwritten notes from past visitors. In recent years the area has had renewed life with mining companies re-establishing operations, like the Paddington Gold Mine.

Local authority relative to development of Kalgoorlie

The town first gained local government with the

Municipality of Broad Arrow The Municipality of Broad Arrow was a Local government areas of Western Australia, local government area in Western Australia centred on the mining town of Broad Arrow, Western Australia, Broad Arrow. It was established on 26 February 1897, followi ...

in 1897. It amalgamated with the nearby Municipality of Paddington to form the Municipality of Broad Arrow-Paddington in 1903. The merged municipality was then merged into the surrounding Broad Arrow Road District in 1910, which in turn was merged into the Kalgoorlie Road District in 1922.

History

Local authority relative to development of Kalgoorlie

References

Further reading