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Marysville & District Historical Society
From the collection of Marysville & District Historical Society
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Photograph (item) - Colour tinted photograph, Sluicing for Wolfram, Mt. Bismark, 1908

  • Shows a group of five men standing with various shovels next to a sluice box which is sitting on top of some rocks at the Wilks Creek wolfram mine near Marysville in Victoria. Sitting at the foot of one of the men is a gold mining pan. The men are standing in a forest. The title of the photograh is written in red along the lower edge of the photograph.

    Sluicing for Wolfram, Mt. Bismark

Historical information

An early colour tinted photograph taken at the Wilks Creek wolfram mine near Marysville in Victoria.

Significance

An early colour tinted photograph taken at the Wilks Creek wolfram mine near Marysville in Victoria.
The first discovery of wolfram in this location was in 1894. The first claims were lodged in 1908 and then with the start of World War I the value of tungsten increased and more claims were lodged and worked. After the war the use for tungsten diminished and the mine was abandoned until World War II when tungsten again became a valuable commodity. However due to difficulties encountered in the mining of the tungsten at the Wilks Creek mine, it was unable to pay its way and at the end of 1943 the mine closed. The viability of mining wolfram at Wilks Creek was again reviewed in the 1960s but with little success. Once again, in 1980 it was reported that there would still be wolfram to be mined but the environmental impact to an area of outstanding natural beauty was deemed to be too great to continue with the project.

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