Peak Hill, Western Australia

Infobox Australian Place | type = town
name = Peak Hill
state = Western Australia


caption =
lga = Shire of Meekatharra
postcode = 6642
est = 1897
pop = 78
pop_footnotes=Census 2006 AUS |id=SSC55246 |name=Peak Hill (State Suburb) |accessdate=2008-06-30 |quick=on]
elevation= 608
elevation_footnotes= [cite news |title=Peak Hill, Australia Page |url=http://www.fallingrain.com/world/AS/8/Peak_Hill.html |publisher=Falling Rain |date= |accessdate=2008-06-30]
maxtemp =
mintemp =
rainfall =
stategov =North West
fedgov =Kalgoorlie
dist1 = 885
dir1 = north east
location1= Perth
dist2 = 120
dir2 = north
location2= Meekatharracoord|-25.638|118.724|type:city(50)_region:AU-WA_scale:100000|format=dms|display=title

Peak Hill is the name of a goldfield, [ Clarke, E. de C.(1913) "Geological report on Mikhaburra (Holden's Find), Peak Hill goldfield. Bulletin (Geological Survey of Western Australia), No. 59, 1914, Report 37"] locality and the site of a gold mining [ Heydon, P. R. (1991) "Gold at Peak Hill" Carlisle, W.A : Hesperian Press, ISBN 0859051536 ] ghost town in the Murchison Region of Western Australia. The gold mine covers 2,162 hectares and consists of four open-cut mines, titled Main, Jubilee, Fiveways and Harmony.cite news |first=Ralph |last=Wragg |title=Montezuma to buy Peak Hill gold mine |publisher=Australian Business News |date=2007-08-01]

In the adjacent region to the locality there are considerable non auriferous mineral deposits. [ Montgomery, A. (1920) "Report on the manganese deposits at Horseshoe Range, Peak Hill Goldfield "Perth, W.A. Dept. of Mines, 1920 (Perth [W.A.] : Fred. Wm. Simpson, Government Printer ] Adjacent fields included the Horseshoe field. [ Stewart, Duke (1897) "The Peak Hill Goldfield".Stewart (cycling through the district compiling a goldfields directory) reports on gold specimens from the Horseshoe and Peak Hill districts. West Australian, 23 November 1897, p.6 ]

Early exploration at the site occurred in the 1890s, [ (1970) The biography of William John Wilson : discoverer of the Peak Hill Goldfields, Western Australia; and, Early history of Peak Hill / compiled by ... Freda and ... Arnold Armstrong and ... Laurence Wilson.Battye Library typescript ] [Reed, Frank. (1897) "The Peak Hill Goldfields".West Australian, 17 April 1897, p.10 ] when gold was discovered by William John Wilson in 1892.LandInfo WA|c|P|2008-06-30] The townsite was gazetted in 1897, and the field has had varied fortunes even in early years. [ "Peak Hill". Article in a series titled: Is the Murchison a failure? Murchison times and Day Dawn gazette, 18 Feb. 1899, p.2f-g ] [ Armstrong, Freda. (1940's) "Early Murchison days : the discovery of Peak Hill : some rich returns" Battye Library document - PR5868 originally in Geraldton Guardian.] Before 1913, the mine produced some 270,000 ounces of gold. Peak Hill was also included as a location in a regional newspaper network of more outlying mining communities in the 1920s and 1930s. [" The manganese record, Peak Hill, Nullagine and Marble Bar Gazette". Meekatharra [W.A.] : Telegraph Printing and Publishing Company Ltd., 1928-1941. 22 Sept. 1928-11 July 1941. it was preceded by the The Murchison times and Day Dawn gazette. Cue [W.A.] : Murchison Times and Day Dawn Gazette, 1894-1925. Distribution area: Cue; Day Dawn; Murchison; Peak Hill Goldfields. ]

In the 1970s it was reduced to a ghost town with a few remaining residents, however in the 1980s activity resumed, [ (1988) "Mining activity to resume at old gold mining site".Daily news (Perth, W.A.), 1 July 1988, p.17 ] [ (1988) "Peak Hill Resources Gold Mine - description of mine opened July 1988 in Murchison" Australia's mining monthly, Aug. 1988, p.19,] producing around 650,000 ounces of gold. The mine became dormant again the 2000s.

Montezuma Mining Company Ltd purchased the mine from Barrick Gold and Rio Tinto in August 2007 for $1 million cash and $600,000 of environmental bonds. Montezuma negotiated an underwriting agreement with Cunningham Securities, a Perth broker, in January 2008 to raise money for further exploration. Montezuma is seeking up to $3 million to drill at four priority zones, hoping to recommence mining in an area that has historically produced over 900,000 ounces of gold. [cite news |title=Montezuma to raise $3m for Peak Hill drilling |publisher=WA Business News |date=2008-01-16]

References