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Big Bell - Kyarra District

Latitude 27° 19' Longitude 117° 39'

Big Bell was gazetted as a townsite in 1936, and is named after the mine of the same name. The Big Bell Mine was a very big low grade ore deposit at Paton's Find, and was developed by the Premier Gold Mining Co in the 1930's. The town serviced the mine, but the mine closed in 1954, and the town was virtually deserted by 1955. It is not known why the mine was named "Big Bell".

Big Bell Street Map - Image SLWA

The following infoamtion was supplied by Derek Prosser: - Big Bell has a history prior to the well documented period from 1936, when officially gazetted a town, and 1956, when the mine again closed.  Originally known as the Coodardy Reef, or Patons, after Harry Paton, who seems to have first worked the area, it's discovery in 1891 predates Cue by about 12 months. It was mined by Blue Bell Proprietry, a U.K. company, for some years, the mine being referred to in some sources as Little Bell.

Big Bell is first recorded as a working mine from 1912, owned by James Chesson and Bill Heydon of Cue. It ceased production in about 1926,
having processed 78,000 tons of ore by the open cut method. There were still thousands of tons of low grade ore remaining, and it was presumably to extract this that the mine reopened in 1937. Both Little Bell and Big Bell leases are referred to in Cue Road Board notes for 1932, as having outstanding rates, with the inference that both were inactive. This of course, was the height of the Great Depression, and the possibility of Big Bell reopening was like a lifeline to the Road Board.

Whether the name Big Bell is directly derived from the Little Bell, to differentiate one from the other,  is not specifically stated, but itseems to me a reasonable assumption. The above information is from the publications "Gold on the Murchison" and"Just a Century Ago", both by P.R.Heydon, also "The Early History of Cue and the Murchison Goldfields", author/editor unknown. All published by and obtainable from Hesperian Press. www.hesperianpress.com