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She and the younger children also made forays in the bush, collecting empty tin cans where
prospectors had camped. These were melted down into sticks of solder which then sold at five
shillings a pound.
259
When Archie McCall leased a thousand acres of farmland in the southwest near Narrogin, the
family put all their goods and chattels on a horse-drawn trolley and set off in February 1902 for
Kalgoorlie railway station and thence to York, from where they walked (a horse and cart
carried their goods) to their new home. The children were barefoot. It took them three weeks.
Bert Facey's brother, Roy, now 13, was left behind in Kalgoorlie, where he worked at a
grocer's for about a year, delivering and doing odd jobs around the shop and earning his keep
and six shillings a week. Perhaps he served John Honeycombe.
Another arrival in Kalgoorlie at this time was Richard Moore, who would be Mayor of
Kalgoorlie for nearly 30 years, from July 1937 to September 1966, and be knighted in 1960.
He had set out for the gold-fields early in 1900, when he was 21. Like his father, he was a
blacksmith; he was also one of 15 children.
'I caught a cattle boat, the Piroo, from Victoria. Everything seemed to be progressing well until
we got out of the bay and then I was for it. I was the first man sick, and very, very sick I was. I
ate a meal at Adelaide and then nothing else until I reached Albany in Western Australia. I had
never seen the sea before and I didn't care if I never saw it again. On St Patrick's Day, 1900, I
arrived in Fremantle, and that night I caught the slow, uncomfortable train to the place of my
choice, Kalgoorlie. I stepped off the train and was really amazed at the buildings in the new
settlement. All the main buildings [except the Town Hall] were then completed, a remarkable
effort as all material had to be brought about 150 miles from Southern Cross, which was the
nearest big railway station. All buildings were completed in six years. Everywhere else, people
were under canvas, and there was an excitement in the air, an excitement which I will never
forget.'
Two years later the population peaked at 30,000; there were 93 hotels and 8 breweries, and
the railway passenger traffic between Kalgoorlie and Boulder was the busiest in Western
Australia. Electric trams also ran on 15 miles of track, down dusty, treeless roads, and dust
haze, caused by horse, camel and human traffic, still infested the area, denuded of trees for miles
around: mine machinery was powered by steam, and tons of wood were needed for burning in
the boilers. Dust lay everywhere; housewives were plagued by it, and after a family had shared
the same bath water in a tub, it would be sprinkled on path and yard in a vain attempt to lay the
dust. Occasionally the whole community would be enveloped in huge red dust-storms.
In 1903, when gold production reached a peak of over 1,151,000 onces, the twin towns had
five newspapers, 13 banks, 80 mills and cyanide plants, around 100 head-frames, and 590
stamp batteries, whose 24-hour use lent a never-ending sound of thumps and thrumming to
every human activity in the town.
Some 7,000 men were employed in mining, and their average pay was £3-12s a week.
Tradesmen earned about 12/6 a day and labourers 10 shillings. By 1910 miners at the face
were paid £4-10s for a 48-hour week.
260
The high-point of 1903 was the opening of the Mt Charlotte reservoir on 23 January by the
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