Yarri Goldfield, Menzies Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Yarri Goldfield	Ore Field
Menzies Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

Yarri is a small goldfield 100 kilometres south-east of Kookynie. Gold was discovered here in 1902 by the Thomas brothers, at what would become the Wallaby mine. This was seven years after gold was discovered at Kookynie and Yerilla in the region.

Yarri as a settlement was little more than a pub, store and boarding house. The pub was built and run by Thomas H. Potts. He was a major figure in the region. With J. Keighley, R. Alderson and W. Newland they discovered in 1897,and developed the major Neta mine at nearby Edjudina, and later the Senate mine at the same location, and Wallaby North mine at Yarri. The Edjudina Station is just south of Yarri, which Potts, along with Newland and Alderson owned. He also owned for a time the Yerilla and Gin Rocks stations.

The store was run by J. Dance, who also had interests in mining in the Yarri area. The boarding house was owned by Maggie Moore, who had a substantial interest in the Wallaby mine, thanks to the estate left by J. Thomas.

The goldfield was a prospector area, and very active to at least the 1950's, and intermittently thereafter. It did not appear to be as rambunctious as some other early prospector fields in the Eastern Goldfields, probably due to it small size, and well run pub by Potts, who did not allow things to get out of hand. Cricket during summer and Aussie Rules Football during winter on the one day off being Sunday was the main social pastime.

We had to wait until 1948, for at least one member of the community to go crazy. Former battery employee, Frank Davies, arrived one night at the house of assistant battery manager Roy Gilbert Stanfield, with an iron bar and wearing no clothes. He smashed his way into the house, while Stanfield's wife barricaded herself in the bedroom. Stanfield raced out the back, grabbed a rifle out of his utility, and confronted Davies. A struggle ensued, Davies getting a bullet wound to the stomach, and Stanfield two mangled fingers.

The Wallaby mines form the main line of lode, running north-south as an impressive one kilometre line of trenches and shafts, directly south of the Yarri Road. Just to the west is the Yarri battery, which has been on the site since 1905. Like many prospector fields, there was constant whinging the battery manager was showing favouritism, or complaints the battery had broken down. In 1933, the pump house, supplying the battery with water burned to the ground, helped along by a 50 gallon drum of kerosene stored in the building. Just north of the road is the remains of the Yarri pub, and 5 kilometres to the west some derelict houses and mine manager's office near the Porphyry mine .

There are a number of widely scattered outlying deposits, some only discovered in the 1920's and 1930's. A modern open pit has been developed at the Porphyry and Mount Wallbrook mines, the rest remain as historic locations.

The area is remote. In 1922, it is noted the locals had been campaigning for years for a telephone line to Yarri. It is next mentioned in 1947... they were still waiting.

The Mindat co-ordinates are the old battery site. The former town site is just north near the road, while the station homestead is a couple of kilometres south.

Geochronology

Mineralization age: Neoarchean : 2661 ± 16 Ma

Important note: This table is based only on rock and mineral ages recorded on mindat.org for this locality and is not necessarily a complete representation of the geochronology, but does give an indication of possible mineralization events relevant to this locality. As more age information is added this table may expand in the future. A break in the table simply indicates a lack of data entered here, not necessarily a break in the geologic sequence. Grey background entries are from different, related, localities.

Geologic Time				Rocks, Minerals and Events
Precambrian
	Archean
		Neoarchean		ⓘ Titanite 2661 ± 16 Ma Wallaby Gold Mine, Yarri Goldfield, Menzies Shire, Western Australia, Australia

References

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