Yellow Jacket Gold Mine, Broad Arrow, Broad Arrow Goldfield, Kalgoorlie-Boulder Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Yellow Jacket Gold Mine	Mine
Broad Arrow	- not defined -
Broad Arrow Goldfield	Ore Field
Kalgoorlie-Boulder Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

The mine name may refer to yellow wool jackets which had broad arrows stamped on them, worn by convicts in Tasmania. They were issued to second offenders who worked in chain gangs. What importance the name had to the original prospectors, other than the link between the mine name and nearby town name, is unknown.

The Yellow Jacket is a group of shafts north-west of the Bulletin Mine. It is one of numerous shaft groupings that follow a trend north-west from the Bulletin mine to the Half Mile Reef mine at the northern end.

It was taken over by the Coolgardie Mining Company in the late 1890's, principally for water, for their newly purchased battery at the nearby Surbiton mine. They found very little water on the Yellow Jacket lease. The main shaft was 145 feet deep, the lode cut at 112 feet, the lode 30 feet wide, and striking east-west. Good grades of gold was found on the Footwall side, but overall was a large low grade show. A geologist in 1898 notes gold, epidote, chalcedony, and calcium at the mine. By 1901, both the Yellow Jacket and Surbiton are under exemption.

A Boulder group, generally referred to as the Yellow Jacket syndicate, carted off several crushings across 1915 to the Hannans Central battery at Kalgoorlie. This would have involved substantial cartage costs, so the ore must have been of high value. Its noted mid 1915 the syndicate had at that point crushed 436 tonnes of ore, worth 750 pounds. However, it could not continue and gold grades quickly decreased from the rich patch they had uncovered. All ore for the history of the mine had been found at the 100 foot level from the surface, and little development work has ever been undertaken at the mine.

Holdwin Gold Mines Limited own the lease in 1930, and still own it in 1933, but gold grades had quickly evaporated. The mine has produced a substantial total of 13 259 tonnes of ore for 12 833 ounces of gold.

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