Widgiemooltha is an abandoned

Ghost town

A ghost town is an abandoned town or city. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economic activity that supported it has failed, or due to natural or human-caused disasters such as floods, government actions, uncontrolled lawlessness, war, or nuclear disasters...

 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...

 located 631 kilometres (392 mi) 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....

 between Kambalda

Kambalda, Western Australia

Kambalda is a small mining town about 60 kilometres from the mining city of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia, within the Goldfields. It is split into two townsites 4 kilometres apart, Kambalda East and Kambalda West; and is located on the western edge of a giant salt lake, Lake Lefroy...

 and Norseman

Norseman, Western Australia

Norseman is a town located in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia along the Coolgardie-Esperance Highway, east of Perth and above sea level. It is also the starting point of the Eyre Highway, and the last major town in Western Australia before the South Australian border to the...

 in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia.

In the 1890s 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...

 was discovered in the area and the townsite was gazetted in 1897 as Widgemooltha, the spelling being amended to the current form in 1944.

The name of the town is Aboriginal in origin and is thought to be the name of a nearby hill and rock-hole. The name is thought to be related to the beak

Beak

The beak, bill or rostrum is an external anatomical structure of birds which is used for eating and for grooming, manipulating objects, killing prey, fighting, probing for food, courtship and feeding young...

 of an emu

Emu

The Emu Dromaius novaehollandiae) is the largest bird native to Australia and the only extant member of the genus Dromaius. It is the second-largest extant bird in the world by height, after its ratite relative, the ostrich. There are three subspecies of Emus in Australia...

.

The gold fields around the area were home to the Golden Eagle nugget which was found in 1931 by Jim Larcombe and weighed in at 1136 ounces (32.2 kg), the biggest found in the history

Gold mining in Western Australia

Gold mining in Western Australia is the fourth largest commodity sector in Western Australia, behind iron ore, crude oil and LNG, with a value of A$5.2 billion....

 of Western Australian goldfields. The find sparked a gold fever

Gold Fever

Gold Fever was the name of a BBC documentary shown in August 2000, which followed Steve Redgrave and his coxless four team in the years leading up to the Sydney Olympics, where Redgrave was looking to claim his fifth consecutive gold medal...

 and shortly afterwood 1,000 more men were working the field unearthing other reef

Reef

In nautical terminology, a reef is a rock, sandbar, or other feature lying beneath the surface of the water ....

s and nugget

Nugget

Nugget may refer to:* Gold nugget, a piece of gold produced through mining and extraction* Chicken nugget, a lump of breaded or battered chicken* Mosin Nagant, a family of bolt action military rifles* North Bay Nugget, a daily newspaper...

s.

Gold and more recently Nickel

Nickel

Nickel is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel belongs to the transition metals and is hard and ductile...

continued to be mined in the area.