Cobar

Cobar, New South Wales, Australia

Cobar, New South Wales, Australia

Cobar, town, central New South Wales, Australia. It is located in the Western Plains region.

Cobar began as a copper-mining centre in the 19th century and remains principally a mining town. Its name possibly was derived from an Aboriginal word meaning “red earth” or, alternatively, may have been a corruption of the word copper. The town’s origins date to 1869 or 1870, when a party of well-sinkers being guided through the area by two Aboriginal men noticed strange green streaks next to a water hole near their campsite. They took samples of their discovery to a Cornish woman who had worked as a bal maiden in copper mines, and she identified their find as copper. (Bal was an ancient Cornish word for mine, and bal maidens were women who worked at the surface of mines in Cornwall and Devon, England, especially during the 18th and 19th centuries.) That led to the founding of the Great Cobar Copper Mine and to subsequent discoveries of copper, gold, silver, lead, and zinc. In the early 21st century all those minerals continued to be mined in the vicinity of Cobar.

Although Cobar identifies as a mining town, it also serves as an important service centre for the surrounding agricultural region. Farms in the area, referred to as “properties,” are held by proprietors as perpetual leases under the Western Lands Lease system. The farms are mostly mixed enterprises. The production of sheep and wool, once important to the area, has declined greatly, and the main focus of livestock farming now is the raising of beef cattle and meat sheep (such as the Dorper breed), along with the harvesting of feral goats. Crop cultivation in the vicinity of Cobar is minimal because the rainfall is unreliable. Sawmilling is practiced in a number of villages in the region.

Cobar sits at the crossroads of two major highways, the east-west Barrier Highway and the north-south Kidman Way. It celebrates its history and culture annually in October with the Festival of the Miners Ghost, and the former administration offices of the Great Cobar Copper Mine house a museum. The New Cobar Gold Mine has a platform from which its opencut operations can be observed, and visitors can tour the historic remains at the Peak Gold Mine site. Near Cobar is Mount Grenfell, the site of Aboriginal rock art and an ochre collection area. Pop. (2006) local government area, 4,918; (2011) local government area, 4,710.