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Grasplatz (''grass place'') is a defunct railway station in the south of
Grasplatz (''grass place'') is a defunct railway station in the south of Namibia
Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...
on the decommissioned Aus–Lüderitz
Lüderitz is a town in the ǁKaras Region of southern Namibia. It lies on one of the least hospitable coasts in Africa. It is a port developed around Robert Harbour and Shark Island.
The town is known for its colonial architecture, includi ...
line. It is the place where in 1908 railway worker Zacharias Lewala Zacharias Lewala ( fl. 1908) was a Namibian worker, considered to have started a diamond rush in the area of Lüderitz in the former colony of German South West Africa, now Namibia, with his discovery of a diamond on 14 April 1908.
Life
Lewala came ...
found the first diamond in German South-West Africa
German South West Africa (german: Deutsch-Südwestafrika) was a colony of the German Empire from 1884 until 1915, though Germany did not officially recognise its loss of this territory until the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. With a total area of ...
and handed it over to his foreman August Stauch
:''This article has been translated from the German Wikipedia article.''
August Stauch (15 January 1878 – 6 May 1947) was a German prospector who discovered a diamond deposits near Lüderitz, in German South West Africa (now Namibia).
August St ...
. Stauch's subsequent investigation triggered a diamond rush
A diamond rush is a period of feverish migration of workers to an area where diamonds were newly discovered. Major diamond rushes took place in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in South Africa and South-West Africa.
Diamond rushes by chron ...
.
The place was originally called Grasabladeplatz (''grass offload point'') because here, before the railway was in place, alfalfa
Alfalfa () (''Medicago sativa''), also called lucerne, is a perennial flowering plant in the legume family Fabaceae. It is cultivated as an important forage crop in many countries around the world. It is used for grazing, hay, and silage, as w ...
was stored to feed oxen before the ox wagons set off through the waterless Namib
The Namib ( ; pt, Namibe) is a coastal desert in Southern Africa. The name is of Khoekhoegowab origin and means "vast place". According to the broadest definition, the Namib stretches for more than along the Atlantic coasts of Angola, Namib ...
.
References