Mount Magnet, Western Australia
Mount Magnet is a town in the Mid West region of Western Australia. It is one of the region's original gold mining towns, and the longest surviving gold mining settlement in the state. The prominent hill that is adjacent to the current townsite was called West Mount Magnet in 1854 by explorer Robert Austin, having named a smaller hill 64 km away, East Mount Magnet. Both hills had an extremely high iron content which affected the readings of his compass. West Mount Magnet had its Aboriginal name reinstated by the Surveyor General in 1972, "Warramboo," meaning campfire camping place. The magnetic variation at Mount Magnet is zero: magnetic north equals true north.
Mt Magnet Shire Office b.1898
Poverty Flats, Mount Magnet, where alluvial gold was discovered in 1891
The Hill 50 Gold Mine, now referred to as the Mount Magnet Gold Mine, is a gold mine located 4 km north-west of Mount Magnet, Western Australia. The mine was, until July 2010, owned by Harmony Gold and had been placed in care and maintenance since 2007. In July 2010, Harmony sold the mine to Ramelius Resources, owner of the Wattle Dam Gold Mine, for A$40 million.
Hill 50 poppet head c1980 when the mine was an underground operation, all buildings and foreground are now part of the opencut