Properties By Region

Golden Pipeline Heritage Information

The Golden Pipeline project is of historical and educational importance to the people of Western Australia in that it is a "bold and imaginative engineering feat that was the largest of its kind by world standards for that period" (Conservation Plan 1997). Arguably it is of World Heritage significance.

Water had been a growing concern in the eastern Goldfields ever since the first gold discoveries at Coolgardie in the winter of 1892. By mid 1895, as prospectors flocked from the Eastern States to share in the riches, water shortage reached critical levels. Later that year the then Premier Forrest undertook a strenuous three week, one thousand mile tour of the region, during which he committed the Government to piping fresh water from the coast if boring for underground water proved inadequate. At the time miners in Kalgoorlie were paying between one and two shillings a gallon for water when the unskilled labour wage in Perth was around six shillings a week!

The advent of a reliable fresh water supply to the eastern agricultural areas and the arid Goldfields, provided more rapid growth, better infrastructure, an improved lifestyle, faster infrastructure development and for the farmers, the confidence to embark on a vast sheep industry. Combined, these benefits succeeded in growing and then stabilising the regional population for generations.

Further information on the Golden Pipeline project may be found here.