Zeehan, Tasmania
Encyclopedia
Zeehan is a town on the west coast
of Tasmania
, Australia
. It lies 139 kilometres (86 mi) southwest of Burnie
. At the 2006 census
, Zeehan had a population of 845. It is part of the Municipality of West Coast
.
The town was named after the nearby Mount Zeehan which had been named by George Bass
and Matthew Flinders
after Abel Tasman
's brig
Zeehaen.
but it was very precarious in its location on Ocean Beach
and was overtaken by Strahan
. Zeehan was established as a mining field, then as a town after the Zeehan-Dundas silver
-lead
deposits were found in 1882 by Frank Long
. The peak period for mining was up to the First World War,though lead mining continued on up to 1963 at mines such as the Montana and Oceana. The population of Zeehan - Dundas peaked at 10,000 about 1910, over ten times the current population.
It was clearly in competition with the town further south, Queenstown
, and while the silver boom lasted it was known as the Silver City. In the first decade of the twentieth century it was on a par with Launceston
and Hobart for size. With a main street over two miles long (3.2 km); it also claimed over 20 hotels. In the 1970s it saw increased activity due to operations at the nearby Renison Bell
Tin mine, and again in the 1990s.
Zeehan was an important railway location — the end of the Emu Bay Railway, and the beginning of the government-owned Strahan-Zeehan Railway
service that connected to Strahan
and Regatta Point, where the Mount Lyell Railway connected to Queenstown
. Also at early stages of the town's history, a series of timber trams spread out from Zeehan towards the Pieman River
as well as a number of other locations.
Some of the smaller railway operations east of Zeehan were unique. One had the honour of having the first Garratt
steam engine designed and built for its operations.
After the Government rail connection between Zeehan and Strahan closed, the Mount Lyell Company
trucked its copper ore to the Emu Bay Railway terminus at Melba Flats
, a few kilometres east of Zeehan.
Limited Avebury nickel
mine, Zeehan Zinc's Comstock
Mine and the Bluestone Tin's Renison Bell
tin
mine are significant economic contributors to the community, but the majority of the town relies on tourism
for its survival.
The main streetscape of Zeehan is one significant feature of the town.
was born in Zeehan, and Eileen Joyce Memorial Park in Zeehan was named in her honour.
West Coast, Tasmania
The West Coast of Tasmania is the part of the state that is strongly associated with wilderness, mining and tourism, rough country and isolation...
of Tasmania
Tasmania
Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. It lies 139 kilometres (86 mi) southwest of Burnie
Burnie, Tasmania
- Sport :Australian rules football is popular in Burnie. The city's team is the Burnie Dockers Football Club in the Tasmanian State League.Rugby union is also played in Burnie. The local club is the Burnie Rugby Union Club. They are the current Tasmanian Rugby Union Statewide Division Two Premiers...
. 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,...
, Zeehan had a population of 845. It is part of the Municipality of West Coast
West Coast Council
The West Coast Council is a Local Government Area of Tasmania. It covers much of the west of Tasmania. It is the largest Local Government Area of Tasmania by area, and the second least densely populated, after the Central Highlands. It takes in the West Coast Range as well as portions of World...
.
The town was named after the nearby Mount Zeehan which had been named by George Bass
George Bass
George Bass was a British naval surgeon and explorer of Australia.-Early years:He was born on 30 January 1771 at Aswarby, a hamlet near Sleaford, Lincolnshire, the son of a tenant farmer, George Bass, and a local beauty named Sarah Nee Newman. His father died in 1777 when Bass was 6...
and Matthew Flinders
Matthew Flinders
Captain Matthew Flinders RN was one of the most successful navigators and cartographers of his age. In a career that spanned just over twenty years, he sailed with Captain William Bligh, circumnavigated Australia and encouraged the use of that name for the continent, which had previously been...
after Abel Tasman
Abel Tasman
Abel Janszoon Tasman was a Dutch seafarer, explorer, and merchant, best known for his voyages of 1642 and 1644 in the service of the VOC . His was the first known European expedition to reach the islands of Van Diemen's Land and New Zealand and to sight the Fiji islands...
's brig
Brig
A brig is a sailing vessel with two square-rigged masts. During the Age of Sail, brigs were seen as fast and manoeuvrable and were used as both naval warships and merchant vessels. They were especially popular in the 18th and early 19th centuries...
Zeehaen.
History
The region has one of the oldest histories of any part of Tasmania, when Abel Tasman sighted this part of the state in 1642. An early port for Zeehan was Trial HarbourTrial harbour
Trial Harbour is a small anchorage on the West Coast, Tasmania, located in the northern part of Ocean Beach, Tasmania. It was an exposed and particularly vulnerable anchorage which was susceptible to the prevailing local weather of the Roaring Forties....
but it was very precarious in its location on Ocean Beach
Ocean Beach
- Places :Australia* Ocean Beach * Ocean Beach New Zealand* Ocean Beach, Hawke's Bay* Ocean Beach, OtagoUnited States* Ocean Beach, San Diego, California, also community* Ocean Beach, San Francisco, California...
and was overtaken by Strahan
Strahan, Tasmania
-See also:* Convicts on the West Coast of Tasmania* Macquarie Harbour* Railways on the West Coast of Tasmania* West Coast Piners-Further reading:* *...
. Zeehan was established as a mining field, then as a town after the Zeehan-Dundas silver
Silver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...
-lead
Lead
Lead is a main-group element in the carbon group with the symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal. It is also counted as one of the heavy metals. Metallic lead has a bluish-white color after being freshly cut, but it soon tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed...
deposits were found in 1882 by Frank Long
Frank Long
Frank Long was a trackcutter and prospector. In 1882 he discovered the Zeehan-Dundas silver-lead field on the West Coast of Tasmania.He had been part of Charles Sprent's Mount Heemskirk expedition in 1876 – and was known as a hardy and strong bushman....
. The peak period for mining was up to the First World War,though lead mining continued on up to 1963 at mines such as the Montana and Oceana. The population of Zeehan - Dundas peaked at 10,000 about 1910, over ten times the current population.
It was clearly in competition with the town further south, Queenstown
Queenstown, Tasmania
Queenstown is a town in the West Coast region of the island of Tasmania. It is located in a valley on western slopes of Mount Owen on the West Coast Range.It had a population of 5,119 people . At the 2006 census, Queenstown had a population of 2,117....
, and while the silver boom lasted it was known as the Silver City. In the first decade of the twentieth century it was on a par with Launceston
Launceston, Tasmania
Launceston is a city in the north of the state of Tasmania, Australia at the junction of the North Esk and South Esk rivers where they become the Tamar River. Launceston is the second largest city in Tasmania after the state capital Hobart...
and Hobart for size. With a main street over two miles long (3.2 km); it also claimed over 20 hotels. In the 1970s it saw increased activity due to operations at the nearby Renison Bell
Renison Bell
Renison Bell is an underground tin mine and locality on the West Coast of Tasmania, Australia.-History:In 1890 tin-bearing gossan was found near Argent River by George Renison Bell...
Tin mine, and again in the 1990s.
Railways
- See also:Zeehan railway station
Zeehan was an important railway location — the end of the Emu Bay Railway, and the beginning of the government-owned Strahan-Zeehan Railway
Strahan-Zeehan Railway
The Strahan–Zeehan Railway, also known as the 'Government Railway', was a railway from Strahan to Zeehan on the west coast of Tasmania, Australia...
service that connected to Strahan
Strahan, Tasmania
-See also:* Convicts on the West Coast of Tasmania* Macquarie Harbour* Railways on the West Coast of Tasmania* West Coast Piners-Further reading:* *...
and Regatta Point, where the Mount Lyell Railway connected to Queenstown
Queenstown, Tasmania
Queenstown is a town in the West Coast region of the island of Tasmania. It is located in a valley on western slopes of Mount Owen on the West Coast Range.It had a population of 5,119 people . At the 2006 census, Queenstown had a population of 2,117....
. Also at early stages of the town's history, a series of timber trams spread out from Zeehan towards the Pieman River
Pieman River
The Pieman River is a river on the West Coast of Tasmania, Australia. It was dammed with the 122m high Reece Dam in 1986 - creating Lake Pieman.-Name:...
as well as a number of other locations.
Some of the smaller railway operations east of Zeehan were unique. One had the honour of having the first Garratt
Garratt
A Garratt is a type of steam locomotive that is articulated in three parts. Its boiler is mounted on the centre frame, and two steam engines are mounted on separate frames, one on each end of the boiler. Articulation permits larger locomotives to negotiate curves and lighter rails that might...
steam engine designed and built for its operations.
After the Government rail connection between Zeehan and Strahan closed, the Mount Lyell Company
Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company
Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company was a Tasmanian mining company formed on the 29 March 1893, most commonly referred to as Mount Lyell. Mount Lyell was the dominant copper mining company of the West Coast from 1893 to 1994, and was based in Queenstown, Tasmania.Following consolidation of...
trucked its copper ore to the Emu Bay Railway terminus at Melba Flats
Melba Flats, Tasmania
Melba Flats is a railway siding on the Emu Bay Railway east of Zeehan that served as a terminus for trains carrying copper ore from the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company in west coast Tasmania, once the Emu Bay Railway ceased services into the Zeehan townsite.The section of line near Melba...
, a few kilometres east of Zeehan.
Economy
AllegianceAllegiance
An allegiance is a duty of fidelity said to be owed by a subject or a citizen to his/her state or sovereign.-Etymology:From Middle English ligeaunce . The al- prefix was probably added through confusion with another legal term, allegeance, an "allegation"...
Limited Avebury 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...
mine, Zeehan Zinc's Comstock
Comstock
-Law:*Comstock laws, anti-obscenity laws in the United States*United States v. Comstock, a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States-People:*Anna Botsford Comstock, , was a U.S. artist, educator, and conservationist...
Mine and the Bluestone Tin's Renison Bell
Renison Bell
Renison Bell is an underground tin mine and locality on the West Coast of Tasmania, Australia.-History:In 1890 tin-bearing gossan was found near Argent River by George Renison Bell...
tin
Tin
Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn and atomic number 50. It is a main group metal in group 14 of the periodic table. Tin shows chemical similarity to both neighboring group 14 elements, germanium and lead and has two possible oxidation states, +2 and the slightly more stable +4...
mine are significant economic contributors to the community, but the majority of the town relies on tourism
Tourism
Tourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes".Tourism has become a...
for its survival.
Tourism features
Among these attractions is the West Coast Pioneers Museum, which is in the old School of Mines building.The main streetscape of Zeehan is one significant feature of the town.
Notable people
The famed concert pianist Eileen JoyceEileen Joyce
Eileen Alannah Joyce CMG was an Australian pianist whose career spanned more than 30 years. She lived in England in her adult years....
was born in Zeehan, and Eileen Joyce Memorial Park in Zeehan was named in her honour.
Further reading
- Manny, L.B. (1963) Railways of the Zeehan District Australian Railway Historical Society BulletinAustralian Railway HistoryAustralian Railway History , is the premier magazine covering railway history in Australia...
, October/November.
- 2003 edition - Queenstown: Municipality of Queenstown.
- 1949 edition - Hobart: Davies Brothers.
- 1924 edition - Queenstown: Mount Lyell Tourist Association.