Ora Banda is a townsite and locality in the
Eastern Goldfields
The Eastern Goldfields is part of the Western Australian Goldfields in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia, covering the present and former gold-mining area east of Perth.
Extent and name origin
The region encompasses the to ...
of
Western Australia
Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...
located north-west of
Kalgoorlie
Kalgoorlie-Boulder (or just 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 referred to as Kalgoorlie–Boulder as the surroundi ...
. The town name is Spanish meaning "band of gold". It includes several operational mines and at the
2016 Australian census
The 2016 Australian census was the 17th Census in Australia, national population census held in Australia. The census was officially conducted with effect on Tuesday, 9 August 2016. The total population of the Commonwealth of Australia was count ...
had a population of eight people.
History
Gold
Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...
was discovered in the district in 1893, and in 1909 the Ora Banda Progress Committee requested that the government make additional lots available, but it was 1911 before a decision was made to declare a townsite there. The survey of lots was made in 1911, and the townsite gazetted in 1912. By 1910 there were approximately 2,000 miners and their families living in the area. The town had two stores, two butchers, two bakers, a town hall, dining halls, a post office, a police station, churches, boarding houses and billiards saloons.
The once famous Huntington Mills Bank was situated there; in its time it was the largest bank in the Southern Hemisphere. In 1911 the Ora Banda Hotel was constructed by Alfred E Garnett using stone and brick.
On 17 June 1913, Eileen Walls (13yrs old) led a procession of school children up the main street, and had the honour of cutting the ribbon and so officially opened the Ora Banda
State Battery. The five head battery ran three shifts and in 1936 another five heads were added.
Water was supplied to the town by dams until the town was connected to the
Goldfields Water Supply Scheme
The Goldfields Water Supply Scheme is a pipeline and dam project that delivers drinking water, potable water from Mundaring Weir in Perth to communities in Western Australia's Eastern Goldfields, particularly Coolgardie, Western Australia, Coo ...
from Kalgoorlie in 1933.
File:Ora Banda school.jpg, The Ora Banda school burnt down
File:very old wheelbarrow.jpg, Living conditions were rough
File:Mining in Ora Banda.jpg, Mine shafts were scattered across the area
Current
Today's gold mining companies are still working the same sites discovered nearly a century ago, and on the outskirts of town you will find the Ora Banda State Battery which is still used to crush ore.
Annually in September the population swells for a day for the Ora Banda Race Day. The race track is opposite the historical Ora Banda Inn.
The town hit the headlines in 2000 with the
Hancock case. A
Gypsy Joker, Billy Grierson, was
fatally shot while sitting at a camp fire on the old town site. Former
Criminal Investigation Bureau chief and Ora Banda hotel owner
Don Hancock was suspected of the shooting and his properties were later fire-bombed. Hancock was later killed in a car bombing in 2001 in
Perth
Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...
in a revenge attack by a member of the Gypsy Jokers.
In the early hours of the morning of 18 May 2019, the hotel was destroyed by fire.
In August 2020 an impact crater was found near Ora Banda. The meteorite crater is estimated to be over 100 million years old, with a diameter of about 5 km.
See also
*
Cawse mine
References
External links
The ghost town that wouldn't die: Ora Banda YouTube promotional and historical documentary
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Ghost towns in Western Australia
Populated places established in 1911
Goldfields–Esperance