:Coolgardie, Western Australia

File:CoolgardieSchoolOfMines WEFretwellCollection.jpg

File:Coolgardie, Western Australia.jpg

File:Gold mass (alluvial gold) (Kalgoorlie region, Western Australia) 2 (16992820417).jpg|date=15 April 2004|location=Ballarat, Vic}}{{cite web|title=Class B objects refused an export permit - Prior to 2013 |url=http://arts.gov.au/movable/export/register |website=Movable Cultural Heritage Prohibited Exports Register|publisher=Commonwealth of Australia Department of Communications and the Arts|access-date=3 September 2016|location=Canberra, ACT}}]]

Coolgardie was founded in 1892, when gold was discovered in the area known as Fly Flat by prospectors Arthur Wellesley Bayley and William Ford.{{cite book|last=Ford|first=Lyall|title=Poorhouse to Paradise: The Adventures of a Pioneering Family in a North Queensland Town|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VIA17Vecpq8C&q=Coolgardie+founded+1892&pg=PA14|year=2001|publisher=Taipan Press|location=Freshwater, Queensland|isbn=0646332546|page=14}} Australia had seen several major gold rushes over the previous three decades, mostly centred on the east coast, but these had mostly been exhausted by the 1890s. With the discovery of a new goldfield, an entire new gold rush began, with thousands flocking to the area. The Municipality of Coolgardie was established in 1894. By 1898, Coolgardie was the third largest town in the colony, with an estimated population of 15,000{{Cite web |last=Eastern Goldfields Historical Society inc. |date=2025-03-07 |title=Coolgardie |url=https://www.kalgoorliehistory.org.au/towns/Coolgardie/ |access-date=2025-03-07 |website=Eastern Goldfields Historical Society}} At its peak, 700 mining companies based in Coolgardie were registered with the London Stock Exchange. The town also supported a wide variety of businesses and services, including the railway connection between Perth and Kalgoorlie,Morris, Bernie & Milne, Rod (2008) Coolgardie's Railway Days Australian Railway History, June; July, 2008 pp183-196; 219-234 a swimming pool (first public baths in the state), many hotels and several newspapers.

The value of Coolgardie to the colony in the late 1890s was so very significant that it was used as leverage to force Western Australia to join the Australian federation. Britain and the eastern colonies threatened to create a new state to be named Auralia around Coolgardie and other regional goldfields, such as Kalgoorlie, if the government in Perth did not agree to hold a referendum on federation. The Western Australian government reluctantly complied and a referendum was held just in time to become a founding state in the new federation. When federation did occur in 1901, Coolgardie was the centre of a federal electorate, the Division of Coolgardie. Soon after in November 1901, Alf Morgans from the state electorate of Coolgardie briefly became Premier of Western Australia. Albert Thomas, also of Coolgardie, was elected the first Member of Dundas, an electoral division south of Coolgardie.

However, the gold began to decrease in the early 1900s, and by World War I, the town was in serious decline. The federal electorate was abolished in 1913 due to the diminished population, as many of its residents left for other towns where the gold was still plentiful, and it soon ceased to be a municipality. The situation remained unchanged throughout the century, as its population slipped to around 200 and it became a virtual ghost town. An example of this decline is that, in March 1896, Coolgardie's main street was lit by an electric light, but by April 1924, the same street was lit by four hurricane lamps.

Despite this, many of the buildings from the town's peak were retained, which in recent years has helped start a small revival in the town's fortunes. The development of a tourist industry has once again created some employment in the town, resulting in a small increase in population. Coolgardie appears to be no longer in danger of dying.

File:Misery Coolgardie.jpg|Prospector riding "Misery", a famous camel that travelled a record {{convert|600|mi|km|order=flip}} without water, 1895Reid, Arthur. Those Were the Days. Perth: Hesperian Press, 1986. {{ISBN|0-85905-101-3}}, p. 97

File:Coolgardie Aboriginals.jpg|Aboriginals participate in ceremony to mark the opening of the Coolgardie Railway Line, 1896

File:Burning McCann efigy.jpg|Miners burn effigy of prospector who lied about gold discovery near Coolgardie, 1897

File:Chamber of Mines Coolgardie.jpg|Coolgardie Chamber of Mines, {{circa|1900}}

File:Camel team Coolgardie.jpg

When the Coolgardie gold rush occurred in 1894, the Afghan cameleers (so-called, although some of them did not originate in Afghanistan) were quick to move in. The goldfields could not have continued without the food and water they transported. In March that year, a caravan of six Afghans, forty-seven camels and eleven calves, set out across the desert from Marree to the goldfield. It arrived in July with the camels, carrying between {{convert|135|and|270|kg}} each, in good condition. Another fifty-eight camels for Coolgardie arrived by ship in Albany in September.[http://www.islamfortoday.com/australia03.htm A History of Islam in Australia] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071130003758/http://www.islamfortoday.com/australia03.htm |date=30 November 2007 }} accessed: 27 May 2010

By 1898 there were 300 members of the Muslim community in Coolgardie and 80 on average attended Friday prayer. Coolgardie held the main Muslim community in the colony at that time. There was not one Muslim woman amongst them, no marriages were performed and no burials, reflecting a relatively young and transient population.

Similar to the other structures, simple mud and tin-roofed mosques were initially constructed in the town. All of the Afghan Muslim population eventually relocated from Coolgardie generally to Perth, the new capital of Western Australia. Racism was very common towards the Afghan cameleers. There were reports of unsolved murders, and torture of Afghan-owned animals.{{cite book|author=Simon Adams|title=The Unforgiving Rope: Murder and Hanging on Australia's Western Frontier|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=q3vHVM3pCFoC&pg=PA178|year=2009|publisher=UWA Press|isbn=978-1-921401-22-0|pages=178}}{{cite book|author=Christine Stevens|title=Tin Mosques and Ghantowns: A History of Afghan Cameldrivers in Australia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T-FyAAAAMAAJ|year=2002|publisher=Paul Fitzsimons|isbn=978-0-9581760-0-2|page=109}}

Great Eastern Highway (National Highway 94) runs through the town as Bayley Street. Just to the town's east, Highway 94 turns south onto Coolgardie-Esperance Highway, which heads towards Norseman, the starting point of the route east across the Nullarbor Plain.

Originally the narrow gauge railway to Kalgoorlie, the Eastern Goldfields Railway passed through Coolgardie, until 1968, when the new standard gauge line was built to the north on a new route.

The Transwa Prospector train stops {{convert|14|km}} north of the town at Bonnie Vale. There is a very limited public bus service to the town on the Kalgoorlie to Perth route, although school bus services are more frequent.

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| Feb high C =32.3

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| Apr high C =24.9

| May high C =20.3

| Jun high C =16.9

| Jul high C =16.1

| Aug high C =18.1

| Sep high C =22.0

| Oct high C =25.1

| Nov high C =29.3

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| Apr precipitation mm =21.7

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| Jun precipitation mm =28.8

| Jul precipitation mm =23.8

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| Oct precipitation mm =16.0

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| Jan rain days =2

| Feb rain days =2.1

| Mar rain days =2.5

| Apr rain days =2.7

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| source =(temperatures 1897-1953, humidity 1938-1953, rainfall 1893-2024){{Cite web |url=http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/tables/cw_012018.shtml |title=Summary statistics COOLGARDIE (Site number: 012018) |access-date=4 April 2024 |work=Climate statistics for Australian locations |publisher=Commonwealth of Australia, Bureau of Meteorology}}{{Cite web |url=http://www.bom.gov.au/clim_data/cdio/tables/text/IDCJCM0039_012018.csv |format=CSV |title=Summary statistics Coolgardie (Site number: 012018) |access-date=4 April 2024 |publisher=Commonwealth of Australia, Bureau of Meteorology}}

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In the 1890s four goldfields were gazetted with Coolgardie as reference point:

• Coolgardie Goldfield (1894){{cite news |title=Proclamation of Coolgardie Goldfield |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/33106002 |access-date=17 February 2020 |work=Western Mail |date=14 April 1894 |location=Perth, WA |page=4}}
• East Coolgardie Goldfield (1894){{cite news |title=Government Gazette - Perth Friday September 21st |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/3066902 |access-date=17 February 2020 |work=The West Australian |date=22 September 1894 |location=Perth, WA |page=7}}
• North Coolgardie Goldfield (1895){{cite news |title=News and Notes |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/4543246 |access-date=17 February 2020 |work=The West Australian |date=23 May 1895 |location=Perth, WA |page=4}}
• North-east Coolgardie Goldfield (1896){{cite news |title=Mining Appointments |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/72372837 |access-date=17 February 2020 |work=The Inquirer and Commercial News |date=6 March 1896 |location=Perth, WA |page=5}}

Despite the changes to the Kalgoorlie region, Coolgardie still has a Mining Registrar.

The Denver City Hotel was the setting for the 2016 documentary Hotel Coolgardie,{{cite web |url= https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/jun/22/i-was-crying-and-i-was-angry-hotel-coolgardies-shocking-portrait-of-sexism-in-the-outback |title= 'I was crying, and I was angry': Hotel Coolgardie's shocking portrait of sexism in the outback |first1= Luke |last1= Buckmaster |work= The Guardian |date= 21 June 2017 |access-date= 11 November 2023}}{{cite web |url= https://i.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/stuff-to-watch/93675914/movie-review-hotel-coolgardie--a-compelling-yet-chilling-watch |title= Hotel Coolgardie: The most disturbing Aussie doco ever made comes to DocPlay |first1= James |last1= Croot |date= 16 April 2022 |access-date= 11 November 2023 |work= Stuff}} while the town itself was used as the setting for the fictional town of Jardine in the 2022 mini-series Mystery Road: Origin.

• Rescue of Modesto Varischetti from a nearby Bonnie Vale in 1907
• Burbanks Gold Mine
• Coolgardie Gold Mine
• Coolgardie safe
• Carnegie expedition of 1896

{{reflist|30em}}

{{commons category|Coolgardie, Western Australia}}

• [http://www.coolgardie.wa.gov.au Shire of Coolgardie]

{{Towns Goldfields-Esperance WA}}

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Category:Mining towns in Western Australia

Category:Australian gold rushes

Category:Eastern Goldfields Railway

Category:Goldfields Water Supply Scheme