Rosebery, Tasmania

Rosebery is a city in the north- west of the Australian state of Tasmania. It lies at the northern end of the West Coast Range at the foot of Mount Black. The Stitt River flows through the city, which is surrounded by the reservoirs of Lake Rosebery, Lake Mackintosh, Murchison Lake and Lake Pieman.

The Murchison Highway which crosses the city. From Burnie it is 109 km away from Hobart and 315 km. At the last census in 2006 the population was 1,032.

The population of Rosebury has decreased from 1996 to 2006 by 22%. The western district at Lake Pieman and on the banks of the Pieman River is called Primrose.

History

Like most other settlements on the west coast of Tasmania Rosebery is a mining town. 1893 discovered the prospector Tom McDonald alluvial gold with zinc-lead lumps in the dense rain forests on the slopes of Mount Black. McDonald staked out several claims on behalf of Rosebery Prospecting Association. Later, it was from this company Rosebery Gold Mining Company. The South Rosebery Mining Company was founded a little later for the exploitation of the southern continuation of the lode.

1896 renamed the Rosebery Gold Mining Company to the Tasmanian Copper Company and from the South Rosebery Mining Company was the Primrose Mining Company.

The lode in the most abundant metal was zinc; but since one then did not know the techniques for the isolation of the zinc from the ore, could do little to exploit the ore vein. A society that was founded on the experimental processing of zinc ore, was the Tasmanian Metals Extraction Company ( TME), which in 1912 built a large plant to door to Williams Ford. However, the experiments did not lead to success, and so closed the plant in 1914 again.

The mines in Rosebery 1916, went into the hands of the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company and later became the Electrolytic Zinc Company of Australasia ( EZ ), merged, which had found an effective method for the extraction of zinc. 1926 began the construction of a mill at Rosebery and 1931 a cable car for the transport of ore from the ' Hercules Mine '' at Williams Ford has been completed. Because of the Great Depression, the mill was not finished until 1936. Since then, the mines were operated continuously at Rosebery; In February 2011, we celebrated 75 years of existence. At present, the mines of the Minerals and Metals Group Ltd are. (MMG ) operated; Zinc, lead, copper, silver and gold are recovered.

Before the construction of the Murchison Highway, the city was connected with Burnie on the north coast of Tasmania only by the Emu Bay Railway.

Well-known residents

• Richard Flanagan - writer, historian and filmmaker

Gallery Images

• Station Rosebery
• Railway Bridge over Creek Rosebery
• Abandoned Erztransportseilbahn
• Stitt Falls at Rosebery Creek