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History |
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Located 497 km north of Perth, Yalgoo is a tiny settlement on the road from Geraldton to Mount Magnet. The appeal of the town is that it is genuinely historic. There’s very little left of this once thriving town and what does remain is old and pretty much untouched. There is an endearing old world charm about the place.
Typically there is some confusion over the origin of the town’s name with some sources claiming that it is derived from an Aboriginal word yalguru meaning blood, thus suggesting that the area was connected with initiation rites. Other sources, however, suggest that the name comes from Eyalgru meaning bloodwood.
Europeans passed through the area as early as 1854 but it wasn’t until the 1870s that pastoralists moved in with sheep and cattle.
The area was first settled in the early 1890s when prospectors travelled through the region on their way to the Murchison goldrush towns of Cue and Mount Magnet. In 1892 five prospectors - Knight, Parsons, Rice, Moxon and Evans - discovered gold at Yalgoo and established the fabulously rich Emerald Reward Mine on a site which is now just behind the Shire Council offices. Yalgoo was declared a separate goldfield in 1895 and by the following year it had become a thriving town with 7 hotels serving a vast tent city.
The town continued to grow. In 1898 the railway line from Mullewa to Yalgoo was opened. It closed in 1978 but the station (on the south side of town) is still in nearperfect condition.
The town continued to prosper until about 1903 when the gold started to dwindle. In 1908 the Emerald Reward mine was closed down. Since then it has been steadily in decline so that now it is a tiny settlement based around a shire office which administers nearly 3.5 million hectares of country where large sheep stations and speculative mining operations are the major industries.
Yalgoo really has three major attractions. The Court House Museum, the Dominican Chapel of St Hyacinth and Thundarella Station.
People wishing to know more about Yalgoo should refer to Alex Palmer¹s book Yalgoo published by Lap Industries, 18 Chalmers Street, Fremantle (it is available at Thundarella Station) and the Monsignor Hawes Heritage Trail booklet. |
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Things to see: |
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Dominican Chapel of St Hyacinth |
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Yalgoo also has one of the most interesting and unusual of all the church buildings
constructed by the famous Western Australian architectpriest Monsignor John
Hawes. Between 1915 and 1939 Hawes designed and helped to build a large number
of churches and church buildings in the Central West.
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Local Colonial Architecture |
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Yalgoo Railway Station and the Court House building are fine examples of local buildings
constructed from the late 1800's through to the early 1900's, and reflect the size
and importance of the Yalgoo community during those heady gold rush times.
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