Sunday

Gold mining town Walhalla, Victoria.

Gold mining town Walhalla, Victoria1863

Walhalla, a small town in Victoria,  Australia, was  founded as a gold-mining community in early 1863.  The town's name is taken from Valhalla from the Vikings.
The first gold was found in Victoria in 1851, which lead to the Victorian gold rush.

A group of prospectors who had been exploring in creeks flowing into the Thomson River valley found gold sometime during late December 1862 or early January 1863. A claim was pegged out and a member of this group, former convict Edward Randel, registered the claim at the outpost town on Bald Hills on 12 January under his assumed name, Edward "Ned" Stringer. Although he was presented with a monetary reward of £100 for his discovery, Stringer was unable to capitalise on his finds, dying in September 1863. Although the settlement was soon rechristened Walhalla after an early mine, the creek running through town still bears his name.

The rush that inevitably followed news of this find was slowed to some extent by the goldfield's remote and inaccessible location, but many miners soon found their way there. In February 1863, John Hinchcliffe discovered an immensely rich quartz reef in the hill just above the creek, which he named Cohen's Reef, after a storekeeper at Bald Hills. Cohen’s Reef - yielded over 50 tonnes of gold, making Walhalla one of Victoria’s richest and most vibrant towns, and home to thousands: with hotels, shops, breweries, churches, school, jail and its own newspaper.

The picture above is of the Long Tunnel Extended Gold Mine (LTEM) which was one of the richest mines of Walhalla.  This mine was the second most productive mine in the area (after the Long Tunnel) and in total produced 13,695 kg of gold until it closed in 1911.

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