The Kakamega gold rush occurred at
Kakamega
Kakamega is a town in western Kenya lying about 30 km north of the Equator. It is the headquarters of Kakamega County that has a population of 1,867,579 (2019 census).
Kakamega is 52 km north of Kisumu, the tenth largest city in Ken ...
,
Kenya
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, capital = Nairobi
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in the early 1930s, fueled partly by the reports of the geologist
Albert Ernest Kitson
Sir Albert Ernest Kitson, (21 March 1868 – 8 March 1937) was a British-Australian geologist, naturalist, and winner of the Lyell Medal in 1927.
Early life
Kitson was born in North Street, Audenshaw, Cheshire, England, the son of John ...
. In his report for the Colonial Office Kitson suggested that possibly as much as half of the gold being prospected was wasted by amateur techniques. In an article for the magazine ''The Spectator'', Kitson compared the influx of amateur gold-prospectors to the
Klondike Gold Rush in Canada in 1897-8 : "''The road to Kakamega now resembles a miniature 'trail of 98' without the snow. Old mining men, from ex-Klondyke Pioneers to Australian backwoodsmen, are hurrying to the spot"''. But it seems that Kitson's initial report had helped create the rush in the first place by highlighting the rich pickings available. As'' The Spectator'' noted ''"Since the publication of Sir Albert Kitson's report, the population of the Kakamega goldfields had doubled".'' Kitson's article in this magazine merely fueled the rush still further.
The European settlers, who had been hard hit by the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
, responded eagerly to news that there might be gold in the
Kakamega
Kakamega is a town in western Kenya lying about 30 km north of the Equator. It is the headquarters of Kakamega County that has a population of 1,867,579 (2019 census).
Kakamega is 52 km north of Kisumu, the tenth largest city in Ken ...
region. Even today the region is honeycombed with abandoned miners' huts.
The largest nugget discovered was called the Elbon Nugget named by reversing the surname of its discoverers the Noble family; Royce Noble, Daniel Noble
References
{{Financial bubbles
Gold rushes
History of Kenya
Kakamega
Mining in Kenya
British Kenya