The discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand in 1886 started a gold rush that surpassed the Californian (1849), Victorian (1851) and Barberton (1885) rushes and the initial boom created the city of Johannesburg, which was literally and figuratively built on gold. The initial boom lasted for three years as the mining companies followed the sloping reef into the earth’s crust and then in 1889 the bust happened, as the gold appeared to suddenly run out which in turn caused a pall of pessimism to hang over the diggings. Read on and you will discover what happened next.
Boom times outside Johannesburg's First Stock Exchange (The Johannesburg Saga)
In early 1886 an itinerant gold prospector and stone mason, by the name of George Harrison, was passing through an area of the Old Transvaal, between the Vaal River and Pretoria known as the Witwatersrand (Ridge of White Waters), then a windswept wilderness without a tree to be seen. He was on his way to the Barberton goldfields when he stopped on route to ask for casual work from the Struben brothers who were prospecting for gold (in what is now Strubens’ Valley). They could not oblige him but instead sent him over to see Widow Oosthuizen, who needed walls built for a house, on a section of...
