Kalgoorlie Renovation Unearths Gelignite, Sparking Explosives Memories

A sack of explosives unexpectedly found on a WA Goldfields building site has left locals reminiscing over the days when they were as easy to buy as a hamburger. Last Wednesday, builders found a hessian sack full of antique explosives under the deck of an office under renovation in Kalgoorlie, 600 kilometres east of Perth. The antique explosives were gelignite, an explosive used for rock blasting in the mining industry, predominantly in the 19th and 20th centuries. An expert police explosive team was dispatched to the desert city and the explosives were removed safely. 'That's pretty dangerous' Kalgoorlie-Boulder historian Tim Moore said the antique gelignite discovery was "pretty dangerous". "You don't need much to actually set that off," Mr Moore said. "If it gets old and sweaty, that's when you've really got dramas, because that stuff is pretty much unstable." According to Mr Moore, control and ownership of explosives had been heavily regulated since the 1980s. However, that was not always the case. Mr Moore said gelignite was "freely available" in Kalgoorlie shops throughout much of the 19th and 20th centuries. Nobel's Explosives Company The gelignite found under the Kalgoorlie deck was stamped with Alfred Nobel's Explosives Company label, a popular explosives manufacturer that supplied Goldfields traders. Mr Moore said gelignite was by far the most common explosive used by prospectors. "It was quite common throughout the whole Goldfields," he said. So common, Mr Moore said, that there were "plenty of stories" about misuse of gelignite causing injury and death in the Goldfields. "So, as time progresses, the ownership and control of gelignite becomes tighter and tighter." Despite the dangers, Mr Moore said it wasn't until the late 20th century that the purchase of explosives was prohibited. 'As complicated as ordering a hamburger' Veteran prospector Mike Charlton said even after explosives were taken off the shelves at general stores, they were still easily accessible well into the 1980s. "You just went to the local mining register in Kalgoorlie or Coolgardie … [then] you wandered off to the explosives reserve," he said. "It was just a tool that prospectors, farmers, everybody used. It wasn't considered a threat to the public." Mr Charlton believed the restrictions came in following the rise of organised criminals in Australia's capital cities and incidents like the Russell Street bombing in Melbourne in 1986. "The dynamics changed enormously." He said prospectors were then required to start engaging professional shotfirers who had the vehicles and permits to undertake explosive works. "That was very expensive … that's where a lot of prospectors decided it wasn't economical to do that," he said. "It became not worth the gamble because there was no guarantee you were going to get yourself some gold." 'Not surprising' if more explosives remain Much of the outer parts of the city of Kalgoorlie-Boulder were built on old mining leases. While Mr Moore said it was rare to find explosives under a Goldfields deck, it "wouldn't surprise" him if there were explosives left in old mining areas. "These old shafts were just shut up … either backfill or just leave it," he said.