Kalgoorlie
Postcode: 6433
Western Australian city located about 600 km east of Perth. Its current approximate population is 30,000. The name Kalgoorlie is derived from the local Aboriginal expression Karlkurla (pronounced gull-gull-la), meaning “place of the silky pears”.
n June 1893, prospectors Patrick (Paddy) Hannan, Tom Flanagan, and Dan O’Shea were travelling to Mt Youle when one of their horses cast a shoe. During the resultant halt in their journey, the men noticed signs of gold in the area, and decided to stay put. On June 17, 1893, Hannan filed a Reward Claim, leading to hundreds of men swarming to the area in search of gold and Kalgoorlie was born. The mining of gold, along with other metals such as nickel, has been a major industry in Kalgoorlie ever since. The concentrated area of large gold mines surrounding the original Hannan find is often referred to as the Golden Mile, and is considered by some to be the richest square mile of earth on the planet. The town’s population was about 30,000 people in 1903 .
The town of Kalgoorlie and the shire of Boulder amalgamated on February 1, 1989 to become the city of Kalgoorlie-Boulder.