Mount Margaret was an

abandoned Abandon, abandoned, or abandonment may refer to: Common uses * Abandonment (emotional), a subjective emotional state in which people feel undesired, left behind, insecure, or discarded * Abandonment (legal), a legal term regarding property ** Chi ...

town located northeast 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 is ...

and southwest of Laverton in the Goldfields-Esperance region of

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 ...

. The first European to visit the area was government surveyor

John Forrest Sir John Forrest (22 August 1847 – 2 SeptemberSome sources give the date as 3 September 1918 1918) was an Australian explorer and politician. He was the first premier of Western Australia (1890–1901) and a long-serving cabinet minister i ...

who passed through in 1869 while on an expedition in search of the lost explorer

Ludwig Leichhardt Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Leichhardt (), known as Ludwig Leichhardt, (23 October 1813 – c. 1848) was a German explorer and naturalist, most famous for his exploration of northern and central Australia.Ken Eastwood,'Cold case: Leichhardt's dis ...

. On 25 June he named a nearby hill Mount Margaret after Margaret Elvire Hamersley whom he later married in 1876. The local

indigenous Indigenous may refer to: *Indigenous peoples *Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention *Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band *Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehorse ...

name for the hill is ''Kalgara''.

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 ...

was discovered at the site of the future town in 1893 by prospectors James Ross and Bob McKenzie. The town's main mine was the Mt Morven (formerly the Mt Margaret Reward), situated on the eastern side of the townsite. By 1896 the local progress association began campaigning for the townsite to be declared. By 1897 lots had been surveyed and the townsite was gazetted in the same year. A police station opened in the town in 1898 but was closed in 1899. Following a

drought A drought is defined as drier than normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, an ...

in the area in 1921 Rod Schenk established the Mount Margaret Aboriginal

Mission Mission (from Latin ''missio'' "the act of sending out") may refer to: Organised activities Religion *Christian mission, an organized effort to spread Christianity *Mission (LDS Church), an administrative area of The Church of Jesus Christ of ...

in 1922, to the northeast of the townsite. In 1924 many Aboriginal people were forced to go to nearby Mount Morgans for food following another drought and hostility towards them by local station owners. When the Mount Morgans and Linden food depots were closed in 1927, the Aboriginal peoples moved to the mission at Mount Margaret.

References

{{authority control Shire of Laverton Ghost towns in Western Australia

See also

References