At the stores at Southern Cross in those days you would see all sorts and conditions of men coming for their provisions. New chums with white soft hands would sometimes appear on their way to the goldfields. Those poor hands would look very different after their owners had put in a month on the burning sands of the mines.
The railway to Coolgardie from Southern Cross was begun in 1894 and opened soon afterwards.
Bakery and Miners’ Camp, Southern Cross
It was with feelings of curiosity that I viewed the desert-looking country as the train approached the world-famed place. It is nearly always in waste, arid, and uninteresting places that gold is found. As the train drew up at the spacious station and I stepped out on to the wide platforms, where some hundreds of people were waiting, I looked round me and said to myself: “Am I really at the famous Coolgardie at last, the Queen Gold City of the West?” I took a cab—dozens of them were waiting—and drove to Summers’ Hotel, where apartments had been reserved for me, and with a sigh of contentment gave myself up to the thought of thoroughly inspecting this famed place. After a very good dinner, with white-waistcoated waiters in attendance, and with every elegance and comfort that could be suggested, I took my coffee on the broad balcony overlooking Bayley Street. I found several people who were here in the early days, and who gave me all the information I desired about the past and the present. The first thing that struck me in Coolgardie was, “What a splendid lot of men there are here!” They were, indeed, unusually tall, stalwart, and good-looking. And why not? The pick of the Australian colonies, the flower of our manhood, were here seeking for gold. Next I was struck by the fine wide streets, lit with electric light, the handsome buildings, and, lastly, the beautiful horses to be seen in cabs or carts, or ridden by horsemen. It is wonderful to view this city of the Golden West which was so recently a desert of sand, mulga-trees, and scrub, where an occasional emu or kangaroo was monarch of all he surveyed; where Sir John Forrest and his party of explorers twice camped, little dreaming of the wealth of gold lying beneath their feet.
The facts about the finding of Coolgardie are thus given in Mr. Bayley’s own narrative: “One morning before breakfast, while going after horses, I picked up a nugget weighing half an ounce, and before dinner found 20 more ounces in the same way. We had left Southern Cross three months previously, prospecting, in consequence of the report of Mr. Hardman, the Government geologist, who had issued a map showing the places where gold was most likely to be found, and had not found any gold of consequence until now. The spot where we made the first find was about 200 miles from the present Reward Claim. In about a month, by specking and a little dry blowing, our gold consisted of about 200 ounces. Our rations ran out and we made tracks to Southern Cross, but went back to the old workings, and on Sunday afternoon, while fossiking around, we struck the reef. That evening we picked up about 50 ounces of gold, and on Monday we pegged out a prospecting area on the reef. That morning a party of three men came on the scene. They had followed us from Southern Cross. That day we obtained 300 ounces from the cap of the reef. The party who had followed us stole about 200 ounces from our claim, so we had to report it. For that purpose I went into the Cross, carrying 554 ounces, which I showed to the Warden. The field was then declared open. After another two days we collected another lot of gold, amounting to 528 ounces. I conveyed them to Southern Cross, and a fortnight after returning to the field had to make another trip there, escorting 642 ounces. All we found was right on the surface, and all we did was to knock the stuff out and dolly it with a pestle and mortar. There were six cartloads of tailings left. After the gold referred to had been extracted from the quantity of stuff, we obtained a further amount of 298 ounces. We got a little over 2000 ounces altogether out of the claim. We only had a five-acre lease of the Reward Claim.”
The news of the unprecedented richness of Bayley’s Find had long ere this found its way over the entire world. Shortly after the goldfield was proclaimed, and when the enormous richness of Bayley’s Reward Claim was flashed all over the Australian continent, Mr. Sylvester Browne, of Melbourne, a brother to Mr. T. Browne (better known as Rolf Boldrewood, author of the famous Australian book, “Robbery under Arms”), travelled to Coolgardie and, after making an examination of the property, bought the Reward Claim from Bayley and Ford for £6000 and a sixth share in the mine. The bargain completed, Mr. Sylvester Browne and some three or four other gentlemen (mostly connections of his) set to work with their own hands, and with no other tools but picks, shovels, hammers, and an iron dolly, extracted the enormous quantity of 9000 ounces, or £36,000 worth of gold, in a few weeks. On April 8, 1893, a parcel of 2500 ounces, worth £10,000, arrived in Perth, and was lodged in the Union Bank. Then, on June 7, 3185 ounces more were received by this bank and exhibited, and on September 6 a third lot of 3605 ounces were deposited by Mr. Everard Browne on behalf of Bayley’s Reward Company, and, finally, during the Christmas holidays, a trophy, valued at £30,000, was gazed upon by admiring crowds at the office of the bank. The trophy is a stirring sight. It consists of 7000 ounces of smelted gold and 600 or 700 ounces of rich quartz specimens, and everybody, from the Governor downwards, has been to see it. This gold was taken from a depth of only 40 feet, while some of the biggest nuggets at Ballarat, Victoria, were found more than 1000 feet below the surface. It is now placed beyond all doubt that our golden reefs are what is termed “permanent,” a fact which pessimists, both in and out of the colony, have until now been loath to admit.
BAYLEY’S REWARD MINE—UNDERLAY SHAFT