Koolyanobbing is located north-northeast of the town of

Southern Cross, Western Australia Southern Cross is a town in Western Australia, 371 kilometres east of state capital Perth on the Great Eastern Highway. It was founded by gold prospectors in 1888, and gazetted in 1890. It is the major town and administrative centre of the Shire ...

. A subsidiary of

Cleveland-Cliffs Cleveland-Cliffs Inc., formerly Cliffs Natural Resources, is a Cleveland, Ohio-based company that specializes in the mining, beneficiation, and pelletizing of iron ore, as well as steelmaking, including stamping and tooling. It is the largest f ...

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

, Ohio mines

Iron ore Iron ores are rocks and minerals from which metallic iron can be economically extracted. The ores are usually rich in iron oxides and vary in color from dark grey, bright yellow, or deep purple to rusty red. The iron is usually found in the fo ...

here. The ore is railed to the port at Esperance for export. Current operations commenced in 1993. The current owner and operator of the lease is

Mineral Resources Natural resources are resources that are drawn from nature and used with few modifications. This includes the sources of valued characteristics such as commercial and industrial use, aesthetic value, scientific interest and cultural value. O ...

who took over from Cleveland-Cliffs in July 2018. MRL currently mine the ore and transport it to the port of Esperance

History

The first European to visit the area was

Charles Cooke Hunt Charles Cooke Hunt (1833 – 1 March 1868, Geraldton) was an English explorer who led four expeditions into the interior of Western Australia between 1864 and 1866. Hunt was born in Sussex to John Hunt and Mary Ann (''née'' Cooke) and baptised ...

in 1864 who explored the Koolyanobbing range that is situated nearby. The next European to visit the area, in 1887 and later in 1891, was a

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 met ...

prospector Prospector may refer to: Space exploration * Prospector (spacecraft), a planned lunar probe, canceled in 1962 * '' Lunar Prospector'', a NASA spacecraft Trains * Prospector (train), a passenger train operated by the Denver & Rio Grande Western ...

named Henry Dowd, who thought that the rocks in the area were of no value. He recorded his findings and stored them in a bottle that was buried next to a survey peg and which was found again in 1963 at what is now known as Dowd Hill. Iron ore was first mined at Koolyanobbing from around 1950. It was sent by truck to Southern Cross from where it was shipped by rail to

Wundowie Wundowie is a town in Western Australia located between Perth and Northam, Western Australia, Northam in the Darling Range. It was the location of an iron works, and siding and stopping place on the Eastern Railway (Western Australia), Eastern R ...

, where there was a state-owned blast furnace. The town was established to service a new

iron ore Iron ores are rocks and minerals from which metallic iron can be economically extracted. The ores are usually rich in iron oxides and vary in color from dark grey, bright yellow, or deep purple to rusty red. The iron is usually found in the fo ...

mine in the 1960s at Dowd Hill. The town was gazetted in 1965. The former

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, Western Australia, Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie. History The Eastern Railway, Wester ...

between Southern Cross and Kalgoorlie was realigned for change to standard gauge, and to service the Koolyanobbing mine. The name is of local Aboriginal origin, meaning "place of large rocks." Dampier Mining Co Ltd, a subsidiary of

BHP BHP Group Limited (formerly known as BHP Billiton) is an Australian multinational mining, metals, natural gas petroleum public company that is headquartered in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The Broken Hill Proprietary Company was founded ...

, mined iron ore between 1967 and 1983. Ore was shipped by rail to Kwinana, near Perth, to supply

Australian Iron & Steel Australian Iron & Steel was an Australian iron and steel manufacturer. History Public company (1928-1935) Australian Iron & Steel (AI&S) was established in 1928 to take over the business of Hoskins Iron & Steel. That company had already comme ...

's (also a BHP subsidiary ) blast furnace. The closure of the Kwinana blast furnace in 1982 resulted in suspension of iron ore mining at Koolyanobbing until 1993. WA Salt Supply produces

salt Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quantitie ...

at Lake Deborah, to the north, which is railed from Koolyanobbing to Kwinana. The Koolyanobbing Range supports many endemic, priority and one declared rare flora species.

Rail services

The ''Prospector'' service, which runs each way between

East Perth East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sunrise, Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from ...

and

Kalgoorlie Kalgoorlie is a city in the Goldfields–Esperance region of Western Australia, located east-northeast of Perth at the end of the Great Eastern Highway. It is sometimes referred to as Kalgoorlie–Boulder, as the surrounding urban area includ ...

once or twice each day, stops at Koolyanobbing.

References

{{authority control Mining towns in Western Australia Eastern Goldfields Railway Shire of Yilgarn

History

Rail services

See also

References