Moolort, Victoria

Moolort is a locality in central Victoria, Australia approximately halfway between the major rural cities of Ballarat and Bendigo.IndustryThe main industry is currently agriculture with sheep and crop farming being the most prevalent although over the last 15 years some smaller farms have started growing grapes for wine and conifers for Christmas trees. In the past however, Moolort was a large gold mining area which at one point had rivalled other local mining towns in the area for population. There is one mine on the outskirts of Moolort that currently mines vivianite and siderite.GoldfieldsDue to a mistake with calculations, the first shaft of the Moolort mines was sunk approximately 6,000 ft to the west of the main lead; this meant that the miners had to dig across to the lead while underground after already having dug down to 284 ft, until a new shaft was sunk. This new shaft was at Keystone and allowed the mines to extract material closer to its source. But the heads of the mining companies did not believe that colonial workmanship was up to the task of constructing the equipment that was needed, especially the water pumps. The pumps were needed to clear water from the mines as a water basin is under a large part of the Moolort plains; at the height of operations the mines were pumping out 20,000,000 gallons of water every day. This led them to buy the equipment from London in England as well as from the United States at a price of £500,000 at a time when gold was selling for about £2 per ounce. It was this excessive capitalisation that ultimately led to the downfall of the Moolort mines as even though the mines were quite rich they were never able to pay dividends.