Ardlethan

Ardlethan is a small service town in the Coolamon Shire in New South Wales, Australia.

Ardlethan is a small service townin the Coolamon Shire in New South Wales, Australia. Ardlethan is at the intersection of the Burley Griffin Way and Newell Highway.Ardlethan lays claim to be the birthplace of the Australian kelpie.

Ardlethan was established in the 19th century after gold was discovered but gold mining was short-lived. The railway line opened in 1908. Passenger services ceased in 1983 however the line remains open for goods trains.Warri Post Office opened on 1 October 1907 and was renamed Ardlethan in 1908.Tin mining began in 1912, and became an economic backbone of the town.A major labour strike in the 1930s gained national coverage.The open cut pit was at one time the largest in the Southern Hemisphere, and is located approximately 5 kilometres North West of the township.Mining eventually went underground and continued through to the late 1980s.The tin mine was reopened in late 2001, particularly for alluvial mining, but closed in mid-2004 after Marlborough Resources was placed under voluntary administration due to disappointing results at its new processing plant, poor tin price hedging results, and lower-than-expected tin reserves.Australian Tin Resources Pty Ltd (ATR) now owns the mine. As at 24 January 2019 ATR had received Development Application consent from Coolamon Shire Council for a Rehabilitation and Tailings Reprocessing Project on the site. They intend to first carry out small scale pilot plant processing operations on site for about 2–3 months to prove up the processing technology, before increasing the scale of the operations.[1]