Looking for something to do? Go to Gold Reef City this weekend and explore Joburg's rich history and how the yellow metal started it all.
It’s just super cool. Going underground, into a gold mine that was active for well over a century. Getting into Joburg’s belly, amongst rocks that are millions of years old. It’s awesome, to say the least. And that’s what every Joburg family should be doing this weekend, or soon at the very least.
Gold Reef City is so much more than a theme park. Sure, the rides are a whole lot of fun, but there’s more to it. The history of Joburg, which in essence is the history of South Africa’s economy and urban sprawl, is as gripping as holding onto a roller coaster ride.
The discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand in 1886 changed the course of South African history. It was prospector George Harrison’s discovery of a gold reef on the Langlaagte farm that set off the largest gold rush the world had ever seen. Prospectors and fortune seekers poured in from across the globe, transforming a dusty mining camp into a growing city.
The Gold Rush started it all
The old South African Republic, basically Transvaal (Gauteng, Mpumalanga, North West and Limpopo today), at first underestimated the extent of the deposits, believing the gold would soon run out, but within months, thousands of claims had been registered. Ferreira’s Camp, where the first miners gathered, was formalised into a town, and the foundations of Johannesburg were laid. The rush attracted powerful interests such as Cecil Rhodes, who quickly moved to secure a foothold outside his interests in Kimberley.
By the early 1890s, Johannesburg had grown faster than any other settlement in the country. It was overtaking even Cape Town in size within a decade. The rapid expansion saw the building of railways, the rise of the Randlords, and the shaping of an economy that would dominate the region for more than a century. The Witwatersrand goldfields created immense wealth. It also caused deep divisions, laying the ground for the Jameson Raid, the Anglo-Boer War, and British control of the region.
This is the rich history that Gold Reef City symbolises. And going underground, experiencing conditions deep below the surface of this city, is something extraordinary.
Symbol of rich history
It’s also the birthday of one of Johannesburg’s symbols of its gold rush genesis. It’s the 100th birthday of a giant machine. The mine winder at the Gold Reef City mine was first commissioned in 1925 and still stands today. It’s the contraption that winds the cables up and down, enabling the lift to carry people, well, up and down the shaft.
The winder was part of Crown Mines, and the underground at the theme park was once the largest and richest gold mine in the world, producing record volumes of gold and employing thousands of people.
“This winder is more than a century-old piece of engineering. It represents the incredible scale of Johannesburg’s mining story,” said Andrew Richard, general manager at Gold Reef City. “It reminds us of the tens of thousands of people who worked underground. The millions of kilograms of gold brought to the surface, and the pioneering spirit that built our city.”
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At its height, Crown Mines was unrivalled. Sixteen main vertical shafts, thirty-two underground verticals and fifty-four inclined shafts. These dug deep into Johannesburg’s gold-bearing rock, some reaching beyond three and a half kilometres underground. It’s incredible to think about it, let alone imagine. Fourteen of those shafts were connected to the now century-old winder, including a shaft called Number 5 that’s five kilometres north of where Gold Reef City stands today. By 1922, the 14 Shaft system alone had reached fifty-seven levels. It’s nearly three thousand three hundred metres below the surface, a world record at the time.
Four million kilos of gold mined
The scale of development was incredible. The main shaft sunk in 1916 was completed in just twenty-two months. A sub shaft, or underground shaft, followed in 1918, breaking global records at nearly one thousand metres deep. By the late 1930s, around thirty thousand people worked underground at Crown Mines, making it Johannesburg’s single biggest employer. Over its lifetime, more than 1.4 million kilograms of gold were mined there. It was hauled from three hundred million tons of rock. For years, it produced more ore than any other mine in the city.
When the gold price fell through the floor in the seventies, Crown Mines closed in May 1977. This is after almost seventy years of continuous operation. At the time of its closure, it was still regarded as Johannesburg’s most productive mine. To commemorate the centenary, Gold Reef City is hosting special heritage tours, exhibitions and educational experiences. The programme will highlight Johannesburg’s mining legacy and the role Crown Mines played in shaping South Africa’s history.
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