The Great Fingall Mine office is a heritage listed building in Day Dawn (near Cue), within

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 ...

Goldfields Goldfield or Goldfields may refer to: Places * Goldfield, Arizona, the former name of Youngberg, Arizona, a populated place in the United States * Goldfield, Colorado, a community in the United States * Goldfield, Iowa, a city in the United State ...

. It was built from stone in the Federation Italianate architectural style, during the

Western Australian gold rushes In the latter part of the nineteenth century, discoveries of gold at a number of locations in Western Australia caused large influxes of prospectors from overseas and interstate, and classic gold rushes. Significant finds included: * Halls Cr ...

, . The single-storey structure was used as the administrative and

assay An assay is an investigative (analytic) procedure in laboratory medicine, mining, pharmacology, environmental biology and molecular biology for qualitatively assessing or quantitatively measuring the presence, amount, or functional activity of a ...

offices for the Great Fingall Consolidated Gold Mining Company. The mine office, and eventually the entire town of Day Dawn, were abandoned following the closure in 1918 of the adjacent Great Fingall Mine and the outbreak of World War One. The mine office has significant heritage value as the only substantial building left in Day Dawn, and as a rare example of co-located administrative and assay offices. The condition has declined due to decades without any use, but remains generally sound, with the only alterations being the removal of verandahs, deterioration related to exposure to weather, and vandalism. The Great Fingall Mine reopened in the mid-1990s. There were initially concerns about the mining operation causing further deterioration to the historic building, due to

flyrock Flyrock, or wild flyrock, is rock that is ejected from the blast site in a controlled explosion in mining operations. The term refers in particular to rock that flies beyond the blast site, causing injuries to people and damage to property. This is ...

from blasting, or of a wall collapse due to the closeness of the open cut pit, but by 1997 the threat was assessed as having passed. By 2020, the growth of the mine to within of the building was endangering it – the gradual erosion of the edge could cause the mining office to slip into the mine. Since , the

Shire of Cue The Shire of Cue is a local government area in the Mid West region of Western Australia, about east-northeast of the port city of Geraldton and about north-northeast of the state capital, Perth. The Shire covers an area of , and its seat of ...

has been looking at relocating the heritage building to the town of Cue, where it could be restored, and opened to the public, but the $3 million cost is beyond the capacity of the shire, which was hoping for assistance from the state government and the mine's owner, Westgold.

References

{{reflist Gold mining in Western Australia State Register of Heritage Places in the Shire of Cue