Mount Morgans Municipal Chambers - WA

Site No 11 on the Golden Quest Discovery Trail
The old Mt Morgans townsite now includes the fully restored Municipal Chambers (1900) at this location with information panels and a cluster of contemporary mining company buildings. Visitors can freely go inside this museum and see relics and read sign boards.

Evidence of the former street remains, with a map of the original Mt Morgans townsite installed near the remnants of the old railway station platform. The Mt Morgans cemetery, two kilometres north-west of the town, is also worthy of a visit. It’s picturesque surroundings, and several different denominational graves where disease, accident, suicide and murder were common causes of death will take you back to the 1900s and the challenges they faced.

Mount Morgans is an abandoned goldfields townsite located about 900 km north east of Perth between the towns of Leonora and Laverton. Gold was discovered here in 1896 by Lilley and party, and their lease was later taken over by E A Morgans who became the Member for Coolgardie and later Premier of Western Australia. The mine developed here was the Westralia Mt Morgan mine, and in 1899 the goldfield Warden for the area requested a townsite be surveyed and declared at Mount Morgans. The townsite was gazetted in December 1899, and is named after Morgans. Alfred Edward Morgans (1850-1933) was born in Wales, educated in England and came to Western australia in 1896 as a representative of Morgans' Syndicate Ltd. He was regarded as "the doyen of mining magnates", and was elected as the MLA for Coolgardie in 1897. He became Premier on 21 November 1901, but when three of his Ministers failed to get re-elected he was defeated in the Legislative Assembly on 23 December 1901. This is the shortest term of any Western Australian government.