Southern Cross is a town in Western Australia

Western Australia

Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

, 371 kilometres east of Perth

Perth, Western Australia

Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....

 on the Great Eastern Highway

Great Eastern Highway

The Great Eastern Highway is a major road between the Western Australian cities of Perth and Kalgoorlie. It is a key route for vehicles accessing the eastern wheatbelt and the eastern goldfields...

. It was founded by gold

Gold

Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...

 prospector

Prospecting

Prospecting is the physical search for minerals, fossils, precious metals or mineral specimens, and is also known as fossicking.Prospecting is a small-scale form of mineral exploration which is an organised, large scale effort undertaken by mineral resource companies to find commercially viable ore...

s in 1888, and gazetted in 1890. It is the major town and administrative centre of the Shire of Yilgarn. At the 2006 census

Census in Australia

The Australian census is administered once every five years by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The most recent census was conducted on 9 August 2011; the next will be conducted in 2016. Prior to the introduction of regular censuses in 1961, they had also been run in 1901, 1911, 1921, 1933,...

, Southern Cross had a population of 711.

The town of Southern Cross is one of the many towns which run along the Mundaring

Mundaring, Western Australia

Mundaring is a suburb located 34 km east of Perth on the Great Eastern Highway. The suburb is located within the Shire of Mundaring.The Aboriginal name of the area 'Mindah-lung', said to mean 'a high place on a high place', was anglicised to become 'Mundaring'.The Mundaring area is also considered...

 to Kalgoorlie

Kalgoorlie, Western Australia

Kalgoorlie, known as Kalgoorlie-Boulder, is a town in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia, and is located east-northeast of state capital Perth at the end of the Great Eastern Highway...

  Goldfields Water Supply Scheme

Goldfields Water Supply Scheme

The Goldfields Water Supply Scheme is a pipeline and dam project which delivers potable water to communities in Western Australia's Eastern Goldfields, particularly Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie...

 engineered by C. Y. O'Connor

C. Y. O'Connor

Charles Yelverton O'Connor CMG was an Irish engineer who is best-known for his work in Australia, especially the Goldfields Water Supply Scheme.-Early life:...

.

A succession of gold rushes in the Yilgarn region near Southern Cross in 1887, at Coolgardie

Coolgardie, Western Australia

Coolgardie is a small town in the Australian state of Western Australia, east of the state capital, Perth. It has a population of approximately 800 people....

 in 1892, and at Kalgoorlie in 1893 caused a population explosion in the barren and dry desert centre of Western Australia.

It is named after the Southern Cross

Crux

Crux is the smallest of the 88 modern constellations, but is one of the most distinctive. Its name is Latin for cross, and it is dominated by a cross-shaped asterism that is commonly known as the Southern Cross.-Visibility:...

 constellation

Constellation

In modern astronomy, a constellation is an internationally defined area of the celestial sphere. These areas are grouped around asterisms, patterns formed by prominent stars within apparent proximity to one another on Earth's night sky....

, and the town's most significant streets are named after stars.

Southern Cross is on the standard gauge

Standard gauge

The standard gauge is a widely-used track gauge . Approximately 60% of the world's existing railway lines are built to this gauge...

 railway from Perth to Kalgoorlie and beyond. The Prospector

Transwa Prospector

The Transwa Prospector is a standard-gauge passenger train operated by Transwa that runs between Perth, Western Australia, and the Goldfields town of Kalgoorlie.-History:...

 and Indian Pacific passenger trains service the town.
The former narrow gauge railway reached Southern Cross on 1 July 1894.

See also

• Goldfields-Esperance
• Mundaring Weir
• John Forrest
  John Forrest
  Sir John Forrest GCMG was an Australian explorer, the first Premier of Western Australia and a cabinet minister in Australia's first federal parliament....
  
  
• Helena River
  Helena River
  The Helena River is a tributary of the Swan River in Western Australia. The river rises in country east of Mount Dale and moves to the north west to Mundaring Weir, where it is dammed...