BHP Mines

Finding mine sites you can get access to is pretty hard due to the Health and Safety regulations. However after some cruising around town we saw this tiny little brown sign (tourist colours) we stumbled on the Junction Mine and Browns shaft.
Great little site that laid out the general overview of all the mines across the 4klm stretch of the line of lode (the seam).
The original BHP site was only across 7 consecutive 40 acre claims, not realising the seam went far further than expected. Eventually by 1949 BHP was boxed in by all the other adjoining claims at each end and sold off the 7 existing claims.
The original 14 shares in BHP were setup at 70,000 pounds each, and 5 years later they were worth 1.5M pounds each. Unfortunately 2 of the original 7 founders sold out after 18 months thinking the mine was done. Bet they were pissed Off.
BHP later bought back into the region taking over many of the other claims.Leggi altro