[4][5] In 1891, the rush to the Murchison goldfields began when Tom Cue discovered gold at the town which now bears his name.

In the years that followed, gold towns such as Abbots, Austin, Barrambie, Big Bell, Day Dawn, Garden Gully, Lennonville, Moyagee, Munarra, Nannine, Peak Hill, Pinnacles, Reedy and Rothsay flourished, only to be abandoned when the mines were worked out.

This was accelerated by the discovery the following year by Paddy Hannan, Tom Flanagan and Dan Shea of gold at Kalgoorlie.

Herbert Hoover, the later President of the United States, served as the mine manager in its early days from May to November 1898.

[6][7] In 1896, gold was discovered in the Wiluna region, which was then known as Lake Way, by three prospectors, George Woodley, James Wotton and Jimmy Lennon.

The political influence of this population was demonstrated in proposals that the region should become a new, separate colony, with a name such as Auralia, and Coolgardie or Kalgoorlie as its capital.

[10] In many cases, the boom was short-lived, with towns and mines in the Goldfields disappearing quickly, once the surface deposits were depleted.

By 1903, the gold mining industry in Western Australia reached its peak, and population of the Goldfields started to decline again.

The effects of the war, a large number of miners enlisted in the armed forces and a drying up of overseas investment meant that, by 1920, gold production in the state had fallen to a third of what it was at the height of the boom.

Gold mining towns like Wiluna or Kalgoorlie experienced a revival from entrepreneurs like Claude de Bernales.

[11] The discovery of the Golden Eagle nugget at Coolgardie in 1931, at the time the largest ever found in Western Australia, attracted many prospectors to return to the state.

[3] In the more remote mining locations of Western Australia, the work force however has moved away from being residential to a fly-in fly-out roster.

This led to the former mining towns not sharing the current boom, with most of the work force residing in Perth, Kalgoorlie or even the capital cities on the east coast and in nearby Indonesia.

[12] Western Australia produced over 50% ($69.5 billion) of all Australian mineral and petroleum sales, which made up 88% of the state's merchandise exports in 2015–16.

In 2015–16, gold was ranked third in the list of resources exported by Western Australia with regard to value, behind iron ore and petroleum, with a value of A$10 billion.