Ghost towns that were once bustling gold mining, farming, railway hubs
Jubilee in Victoria was once a gold mining boom town. (ABC News: Gavin McGrath)
The decaying ruins of Jubilee tell a tale of what might have been.
Like many other Victorian gold mining towns of the age it boasted busy diggings, mighty processing engines and cosy homes for the hopeful miners that lived and toiled there.
The local school at nearby Italian Gully once echoed to the laughter of 500 children.
But Jubilee, south-west of Ballarat, was not destined to become one of Australia's famed mining cities.
Once the gold was dug out and carted away, Jubilee dwindled and died.
All that's left is its ghostly remains.
Jubilee is slowly being reclaimed by the native forest. (ABC News: Gavin McGrath)
Federation University associate professor of history David Waldron said Jubilee had succumbed to the boom-bust cycle typical of many mining communities.
"What tends to happen is the economy that drove the town disappeared, the reason for the town to be there disappears and people gradually move on,"Dr Waldron said.
"That becomes self-perpetuating as people leave. The shops have fewer people to sell to. There's less reason to be there, facilities disappear, and eventually so does the town for all intents and purposes."
David Waldron says once the economic driver behind a town ceases to exist, people eventually move on. (ABC Central Victoria: Beth Gibson)
As is the way, Jubilee had a relatively short life.
Gold was found in the 1850s and, after a gold-bearing reef was uncovered in 1887, it become a boom town.
However, the gold soon dried up and by 1912 Jubilee was completely abandoned.
The remains of Jubilee's cyanide plant are one of the few reminders of the once bustling mining town. (ABC News: Gavin McGrath)
Other ghost towns
Old Tallangatta's path to ghost-hood was anything but a gradual decline.
When the Hume Dam's height was raised 9 metres it eventually flooded the town, previously named Tallangatta.
The town's population famously moved about 8 kilometres west to Bolga where a new town (renamed Tallangatta) was built.
The flooded town posthumously became known as Old Tallangatta.
The town's remains can be seen when the Hume Weir dips to half-full, with a handful of occupied houses remaining above the dam's high-water mark.
Little remains of downtown Old Tallangatta apart from the faint outline of its former streets. (ABC News: Allison Jess)
It's not the only ghost town on Australian maps.
Cook, in far western South Australia, was a railway town that serviced the Trans-Australian Railway and once boasted a hospital and school.
But the introduction of more reliable trains and railway lines meant Cook's role was eventually rendered redundant.
Its population dwindled to next to nothing and it is now little more than a stopover point for passengers on the Indian Pacific train.
Cook in South Australia was once a thriving railway town. Now it is a stopover for tourists. (Wikimedia Commons: Mike Young, CC BY-SA 3.0)
It's now widely regarded as a ghost town, despite an official population of 71, according to the 2021 census.
Dr Waldron said any town that once boasted a large population but had declined to the point where practically all businesses and services had been wound up could be classified as ghost towns.
The remains of the Royal Hotel, which used to be the heart of the gold-rush town of Linda. (ABC Radio Hobart: Catherine Zengerer)
"If you look at the famous ghost town of Linda in western Tasmania, there are still some people who live there, who are hanging on," he said.
"Sometimes they try and set up tourism, which is the case [in] … Linda, being quite a strange gothic spectacle of a place."
Dr Waldron said other locations like Steiglitz in Victoria had become heritage sites.
"It's no longer about the industry that once led to the town being significant," he said.
The remains of St Cecilia's Catholic Church in Big Bell, Western Australia. (Facebook: Greg Davis, Explored Visions)
Few reasons to stay
Gold and other precious metals aren't always found in the most convenient places.
When gold was found in Gippsland, it was often in mountainous regions that were difficult to reach.
The wealth it generated was encouragement enough for families to build in out-of-the-way places like Grant.
But once the ground's wealth dissipated, so did their willingness to remain in Grant.
The Gippsland town of Grant in its heyday. Little remains of it today. (Supplied: Gippsland and Regional Studies Collection, Federation University Gippsland Campus)
Linda Barraclough, a Gippsland historian, said Grant was a thriving place in its heyday.
"It was so busy it even had a double main street," she said.
"It had hundreds of people, and pubs, and dance halls … they brought it a prefabricated church from England to put up."
She said once the Grant gold rush concluded, so did the town's chance of survival.
"If you go there now, there is nothing there. You might find the cemetery, and some old bricks and that's about it."
Walhalla once had a population of about 4,000 people. It's now home to fewer than 40. (Supplied: Gippsland and Regional Studies Collection, Federation University Gippsland Campus)
End of the line
Victoria and Western Australia's ghost towns often rose and fell with those states' gold mining fortunes.
In New South Wales and Queensland, railways were the common denominator.
But when the trains stopped coming, so did the people, according to photographer and outback explorer Greg Davis.
"Often they were agricultural towns [that closed], and when the agriculture declined during times of drought, the trains stopped coming and the town closed up," Mr Davis said.
"A lot of them became ghost towns in the 1970s, especially in NSW.
"A government decision — a flick of a pen by a minister — closed many country [railway] branch lines, dooming these towns."
Deserted homes in Cracow, Queensland. The population of 100 is a fraction of what it was at its peak. (Facebook: Greg Davis, Explored Visions)
New ghost towns
Changes in agriculture continues to impact rural townships to this day.
Dr Waldron said some farming towns risked following old mining and railway settlements into ghost-town status.
"Farming is now a high-tech agricultural industry. The number of people employed has declined and the kind of employment is declined," he said.
"Those regional centres that accommodated those labourers now face economic decline and, in those cases, face a slow death as that industry transforms."
Silverton, near Broken Hill, has a permanent population but is regarded by some as a ghost town. (Facebook: Greg Davis, Explored Visions)
Dr Waldron said there was hope for some of these ghost towns, mainly though tourism.
"Ghost towns are gaining in popularity and a lot of people are coming out from Melbourne as well as internationally to explore them," he said.
"With the tourists, and of course the tourists' money, comes new industries, new development and new opportunities.
"That's certainly happened in old gold mining towns in central Victoria such as Maldon and Castlemaine, which have redeveloped as cultural tourism centres."