Aussie Towns: Gwalia, WA
With a direct connection to the White House in the USA, this historic mining town is no ordinary tourist attraction.
VISITOR INFORMATION
Gwalia Museum, 1227 Tower Street; open 9am–4pm. Call 0419 958 199. Entry free. Useful websites include: gwalia.org.au
leonora.wa.gov.au/your-community/gwalia-museum.aspx
THE SETTLEMENT OF Gwalia grew in the late 1890s after the discovery of gold in the area. Underground mining began in 1897 at the Sons of Gwalia mine, which became one of Australia’s biggest goldmines before it shut down in 1963 and much of the local population departed. The mine’s first manager, a young American mining engineer named Herbert Hoover, went on to become the 31st president of the United States, from 1929 to 1933. These days the town of Gwalia has become one of the Western Australian Goldfields’ leading tourist attractions, with a recently completed $3.3 million heritage upgrade that included conservation of the town’s historic precinct, museum and Hoover House, reconstruction of the mine’s historic timber headframe and preservation of 22 traditional miners’ cottages. Thanks to new technology, the original Gwalia goldmine is back operating again. Owned and operated by Australian-based company St Barbara since the mid-1980s, a $100 million project has been approved to extend the mine to at least 2000m below the surface and it is now forecast to be producing 290,000 ounces of gold annually by the 2022 financial year.