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Cockle Creek Smelter

City of Lake MacquarieIndustrial buildings in New South Wales

Cockle Creek Smelter was a zinc and lead smelter located at the northern end of Lake Macquarie near Boolaroo in Newcastle, New South Wales. The smelter was built in by the Sulphide Corporation in 1896 and the first attempts to refine zinc using the Ashcroft Process began in 1897 but that process was abandoned shortly after due to technical difficulties. The plant was subsequently adapted to smelt Lead using blast furnace technology. The smelter produced large quantities of Zinc, Lead and sulphuric acid during its life. The Cockle Creek Smelter was one of the Hunter regions first major industrial site and its operation contributed to the economic growth of New South Wales and Australia. Other materials were produced at the smelter to fill the need as required such as Cement, Superphosphate and compounds for explosive manufacture for the war effort in World War I and World War II. A rail connection was made from the plant to the Newcastle line on 16 July 1896. The smelter closed in September 2003, since it had become uneconomic. It is now hoped COSTCO & IKEA will open Bulk Retail Sales Warehouses on the site. (http://www.lakesmail.com.au/story/6350365/state-snaps-up-pasminco-site/)

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Cockle Creek Smelter (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

Cockle Creek Smelter
Fotheringham Road, Newcastle-Maitland Boolaroo

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Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N -32.947777777778 ° E 151.62611111111 °
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Fotheringham Road

Fotheringham Road
2284 Newcastle-Maitland, Boolaroo
New South Wales, Australia
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Boolaroo Racecourse
Boolaroo Racecourse

Boolaroo Racecourse is a former racecourse, near the suburb of Boolaroo, New South Wales, Australia, it was served by a station and siding on the then Main North Line. The area is now an industrial estate. The racecourse was located to the west of Cockle Creek with its western and northern boundary being the original Sydney to Newcastle rail line (1889). The station was closed on 14 May 1942 and removed. The new line (1957) was constructed nearly 30 years after the demise of the racecourse. The racecourse had a difficult start in the 1890s with a scarcity of race days for the Boolaroo calendar. With the Sulphide Corporation, from 1898, becoming an important place of employment things were looking up for Boolaroo and the adjacent suburbs. The advertisement for a New Year’s day 1902 meeting at the Doncaster Racecourse Boolaroo was a strong indication of the racecourse as a participant in the sport in the Lower Hunter region.Things look to have been tough in the early years of the 20th century and the Maitland Daily Mercury reported on 23 Sep. 1908 that the “Boolaroo racecourse, at Cockle Creek, changed hands to-day, for a large sum.” Racecourse Purchased by a Syndicate. The new owners were planning “to immediately make the property one of the best equipped courses in the State.” . . . "Mr. Lou Solomon, secretary of (Newcastle) Tattersalls Club, will have the management of the new venture, in the capacity of secretary to the syndicate." The paper also noted: "There was a station and a siding near the south-western corner of the racecourse paddock. The location of the railway made the track attractive to owners and punters from Sydney to enjoy their sport at Boolaroo." A number of aircraft used the racecourse as an emergency landing site, including the aircraft Southern Cross flown by Charles Kingsford Smith in 1927.