page_title: Whim Creek, Western Australia
section_title: History of mining
hierarchical_section_title: Whim Creek, Western Australia / History of mining
caption_attribution_description: English: Author: Rolinator. This is an image of the old ~1920 or 1960's's head frame of the underground workings, Whim Creek Mine, Western Australia. Image released for free use.
context_page_description: Whim Creek is a small town in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.
  Originally a post office known as "Whim Well", Whim Creek is on the North West Coastal Highway midway between Karratha and Port Hedland. It is 1,645 kilometres north of Perth and a stopover point for travellers to Broome.
context_section_description: Copper was discovered several kilometres west of the town in 1872 and gold 20 km north in 1887.
  Copper has been mined on and off at Whim Creek over a period of 120 years. Copper was mined initially via a series of small adits and stopes into the Whim Creek and Mons Cupri deposits by artisanal miners, with records indicating that as early as 1882 small quantities of malachite, azurite, chrysocolla and other copper minerals were being won.  Copper was shipped via a small port on the coast at the nearby town of Balla Balla.  A single track narrow-gauge railway ran from Whim Creek to Balla Balla.  At its peak, the town supported two hotels, a blacksmith, a police station and a horse track.
  In the early 1900s a second period of mining began, with around 60,000 tonnes of copper concentrate produced mainly from the Whim Creek Mine.  In the 1960s Japanese interests undertook a resource drilling program, with diamond core drilling, and built a small oxide mining operation.  This shut down in the early 1970s.
  The leases passed to Whim Creek Copper Limited, but the company found profit elsewhere, and the mining leases were passed through several owners until the mid-1990s when Straits Resources Limited took over the tenure.
caption: Old headframe for historic underground workings, Whim Creek Mine
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