Wyalong is part of the

Bland Shire Bland Shire is a local government area in the Riverina region of New South Wales, Australia. it covers an area of . As at the the population was 5,995. It is a member of the League of Extraordinary Communities which was established by Dull, Per ...

located in the Northern

Riverina The Riverina is an agricultural region of south-western New South Wales, Australia. The Riverina is distinguished from other Australian regions by the combination of flat plains, warm to hot climate and an ample supply of water for irrigation ...

Region of

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

, Australia. Established as 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 me ...

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic ...

town, it is now a quiet town with historic buildings a few kilometres east of

West Wyalong West Wyalong is the main town of the Bland Shire in the Riverina region of New South Wales, Australia. Located west of Sydney and above sea level, it is situated on the crossroads of the Newell Highway between Melbourne and Brisbane, and th ...

, the major district service centre. At the , Wyalong had a population of 851.

History

The town of Wyalong was established in 1884. Gold was discovered at Wyalong in September 1893 by Joseph Neeld. The "Main Camp" was erected on the eastern side of the main diggings with impressive government buildings being erected, now classified by the Heritage Trust as being worthy of preservation. The goldfield was named Wyalong by mining warden

William Henry John Slee William Henry John Slee, FGS (1836–1907), was an Australian geologist, mines inspector, and mining warden. Origins and early life More usually known as W.H.J. Slee, or sometimes John Slee, he was born Wilhelm Heinrich Johann Slee on 3 May 1836 ...

.''Barrier Miner'', 11 April 1907, p. 2. At its peak in May 1894 there were more than 12,000 miners on the goldfields, digging deep vertical shafts and tunnels to access the quartz reefs which contained the gold. By the end of 1894 the number of miners had reduced to about 4,200. The Amalgamated Miners' Association of Australasia, a precursor of the

Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union The Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union (CFMMEU, though most commonly still referred to as CFMEU) is Australia's main trade union in construction, forestry, maritime, mining, energy, textile, clothing and footwear producti ...

, was active in the area, including organising

eight-hour day The eight-hour day movement (also known as the 40-hour week movement or the short-time movement) was a social movement to regulate the length of a working day, preventing excesses and abuses. An eight-hour work day has its origins in the ...

processions (see

Photo A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now crea ...

). The Catholic

Sisters of Mercy The Sisters of Mercy is a religious institute of Catholic women founded in 1831 in Dublin, Ireland, by Catherine McAuley. As of 2019, the institute had about 6200 sisters worldwide, organized into a number of independent congregations. They a ...

started their first school at St. Patrick's, Wyalong, in 1896 with 196 students and 6 Sisters. In 1899 Wyalong became a municipality with council chambers being erected, a courthouse, police station, post office and school of arts. Homes and businesses were initially built around the main mining area. In 1895

was developed around the bullock track further west. As mining declined West Wyalong became the main service centre for agriculture in the surrounding district, although for many years there was rivalry between the towns. Both towns wanted the Temora railway line, constructed in 1903, but settled on a compromise of a station midway between the two towns, called Wyalong Central. Gold mining in the immediate area declined from 1910 and ceased by 1921. Old tailings were reworked by cyanide processing during the 1930s. In 2004 Barrick Gold is undertaking gold mining 43 km west at

Lake Cowal Lake Cowal is the largest inland lake in New South Wales, Australia. The lake is ephemeral, being fed by the small Bland Creek and by the occasional flooding of the Lachlan River. Despite this, it retains a considerable amount of water in about ...

through the process of in situ cyanide leaching, a variant of the controversial process of

Gold cyanidation Gold cyanidation (also known as the cyanide process or the MacArthur-Forrest process) is a hydrometallurgical technique for extracting gold from low-grade ore by converting the gold to a water-soluble coordination complex. It is the most commonl ...

. Development since the 1970s has expanded Wyalong in the direction of West Wyalong with several motels built at Central Wyalong. A shared bicycle and pedestrian track was constructed in 1994 to link Wyalong with West Wyalong. File:Wyalong Anglican Church.JPG, Wyalong Anglican Church

References

External links

{{authority control Towns in New South Wales Towns in the Central West (New South Wales) Newell Highway Mining towns in New South Wales