Tallawang is an historical locality north of

Gulgong Gulgong is a 19th-century gold rush town in the Central Tablelands and the wider Central West regions of the Australian state of New South Wales. The town is situated within the Mid-Western Regional Council local government area. It is locate ...

in central western

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. The place name is derived from an aboriginal word for "apple gum".

History

The area now known as Tallawang (originally often spelled Tallewang) lies on the traditional lands of the

Wiradjuri The Wiradjuri people (; ) are a group of Aboriginal Australian people from central New South Wales, united by common descent through kinship and shared traditions. They survived as skilled hunter-fisher-gatherers, in family groups or clans, a ...

people. In the 1830s the area was settled by Europeans, originally raising sheep. The Tallawang area is in the valley of Tallawang Creek, which flows south into Wyaldra Creek and then subsequently to the Cudgegong River west of

. There was an inn at Tallawang on the track and stock route which is now the

Castlereagh Highway Castlereagh Highway is a state highway located in New South Wales and Queensland, Australia. The highway's northern terminus is at a junction with Carnarvon Highway, south of , Queensland. Its southern terminus is at a junction with Great West ...

. In the 1860s gold was discovered at Tallawang and it became the site of a minor

gold rush A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, New ...

, overshadowed by the much larger discoveries of gold at Gulgong to the south of Tallawang. In the late 19th century, many small farms at Tallawang were owned by retired gold miners, and Tallawang had an inn, school, church and stores. A railway station opened in 1909, when the railway line was built from Gulgong to Dunedoo, and was closed in 1974. In the early 20th century, an iron ore mine operated there, called Tallawang Iron Mines. A government railway line to the quarry was built, and successful ore production commenced in 1911. The ore was railed to Lithgow, where it was smelted in the Lithgow Blast Furnace. The Tallawang Iron Mines closed in February 1927. The mine was worked again from early 1952, with the

magnetite Magnetite is a mineral and one of the main iron ores, with the chemical formula Fe2+Fe3+2O4. It is one of the oxides of iron, and is ferrimagnetic; it is attracted to a magnet and can be magnetized to become a permanent magnet itself. With th ...

ore being crushed and ground and then used in the process of

coal washing 300px, A coal "washer" in Eastern Kentucky A modern coal breaker in Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania combines washing, crushing, grading, sorting, stockpiling, and shipping in one facility built into a stockpile of anthracite coal below a mountain top ...

. This continued up to the 1980s. More recently, underground mining of magnetite has commenced in the area. Today nothing remains Tallawang. From 1906, Tallawang was part of the Wyaldra Shire, then the

Gulgong Shire Gulgong is a 19th-century gold rush town in the Central Tablelands and the wider Central West regions of the Australian state of New South Wales. The town is situated within the Mid-Western Regional Council local government area. It is located ...

, and now is part of the

Mid-Western Regional Council The Mid-Western Regional Council is a local government area in the Central West region of New South Wales, Australia. The area is located adjacent to the Castlereagh Highway that passes through the middle of the area in an approximate southeast� ...

area, based at

Mudgee Mudgee is a town in the Central West of New South Wales, Australia. It is in the broad fertile Cudgegong River valley north-west of Sydney and is the largest town in the Mid-Western Regional Council local government area as well as being th ...

Notes and references

Towns in New South Wales {{NewSouthWales-geo-stub Ghost towns in New South Wales Mining towns in New South Wales