Dapto Smelting Works

Commons category link is locally definedHistory of WollongongUse Australian English from August 2025

Dapto Smelting Works, also known as Lake Illawarra Smelting Works, was a smelter for base metals and gold-bearing pyrite and telluride ores, at modern-day Kanahooka, near Dapto, New South Wales. The smelter operated, from 1897 to 1905. It also produced sulphuric acid, some of which it used itself as a reagent. The smelter was established and first operated by Smelting Company of Australia Limited. From 1902, the smelter was owned and operated by another company, Smelting and Refining Company of Australia Limited, until that company went into voluntary liquidation, in 1905. The relocation of smelter operations, to Port Kembla, by then owner Australian Smelting Company, was abandoned in 1908, and was not revived by its successor Australian Smelting Corporation. None of those four companies should be confused with, Electrolytic Refining and Smelting Company of Australia Limited (ER&S), which operated a copper smelting and refining plant at Port Kembla, from 1908. Australian Smelting Company, as referred to here, should not be confused with the nearly identically-named company, Australian Smelting Company Proprietary Limited, that earlier had operated a smelter at Dry Creek, South Australia. In the years when the Dapto Smelting Works operated, the area where it was located—now Kanahooka—was sometimes referred to as 'Lake Illawarra', but that should not be confused with the modern-day suburb of Lake Illawarra, which is on the opposite side of the lake, to the south of its entrance.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Dapto Smelting Works (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Dapto Smelting Works
The Arches, Wollongong Kanahooka

Geographical coordinates (GPS) Address Nearby Places
placeShow on map

Continue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude	Longitude
N -34.494722222222 °	E 150.82155555556 °

placeShow on map

Address

The Arches

The Arches
2530 Wollongong, Kanahooka
New South Wales, Australia
mapOpen on Google Maps

Nearby Places

Kanahooka, New South Wales

Kanahooka is a southern suburb in Wollongong City Council. It has a few shops and a playground. Situated on Lake Illawarra is a Park with a playground. It has a public school (Hayes Park Public School) and a high school (Kanahooka High School).

Koonawarra, New South Wales

Koonawarra is a suburb of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia. It is located on the western shore of Lake Illawarra. Koonawarra, or Exmouth, as it was then called, was one of the first five land grants located in the Illawarra. It was a grant of 1300 acres made to Richard Brooks in 1817. The grant faced Lake Illawarra and extended from Brook's Creek to Mullet Creek. Koonawarra was the aboriginal name for the area. "Exmouth" was later secured by Henry Osborne and became part of his central Illawarra estate, extending from Macquarie Rivulet to Mullet Creek, and from Lake Illawarra to the mountains. The name Koonawarra is from the aboriginal word "Koonawarra” meaning "swan”

Brownsville, New South Wales

Brownsville is a suburb of the City of Wollongong.Brownsville was the location of the first settlement at Dapto. With the construction of the South Coast railway, Dapto developed around the railway station, which was further south. Brownsville was named after George Brown who received a grant of 300 acres, south of Mullet Creek, in 1833. His "Ship Inn" became the centre of the farming community.

Kanahooka High School

Kanahooka High School is a government-funded co-educational comprehensive secondary day school, located in Kanahooka, 15 kilometres (9 mi) southwest of the city of Wollongong, in the Illawarra region of New South Wales, Australia. Established in 1974, the school enrolled for approximately 600 students in 2018, from Year 7 to Year 12, of whom 16 percent identified as Indigenous Australians and eight percent were from a language background other than English. The school is operated by the NSW Department of Education; the principal is Christine Toohey. Students are drawn from a catchment area that covers the southwestern part of the City of Wollongong.

Kembla Grange rail disaster

The Kembla Grange rail disaster was a rail disaster that occurred on the early morning of 20 October 2021 near Kembla Grange Railway Station, New South Wales, Australia. The train derailed and collided at a level crossing, when a stolen van was placed in the middle of the crossing.

Kembla Grange railway station

Kembla Grange railway station is a single-platform intercity train station located in Kembla Grange, New South Wales, Australia, on the South Coast railway line. The station serves NSW TrainLink trains travelling south to Kiama and north to Wollongong and Sydney. The station ranked equal last for patronage on the metropolitan network in 2012, and was one of 23 on the metropolitan rail network to record an average of fewer than one passenger per day in 2014.

Dapto Mall

Dapto Mall is a shopping centre in the suburb of Dapto, a suburb of Wollongong in the Illawarra region.

Berkeley, New South Wales

Berkeley is a suburb of Wollongong, New South Wales. The suburb is located in Wollongong's southern suburbs, on the northern shore of Lake Illawarra, and is one of the city's most populous suburbs. At the 2016 census, it had a population of 7,605.

Kembla Grange, New South Wales

Kembla Grange is a suburb west of Berkeley, in the City of Wollongong. At the 2016 census, it had a population of 252.The Kembla Grange Racecourse and its railway station are located there.

Dapto railway station

Dapto railway station is located on the South Coast railway line in the Wollongong suburb of Dapto, New South Wales, Australia.

Dapto, New South Wales

Dapto is a suburb of Wollongong in the Illawarra region of New South Wales, Australia, located on the western side of Lake Illawarra and covering 7.15 square kilometres (2.76 sq mi). As at the 2016 census, the suburb had a population of 10,730.

Tallawarra Power Station

Tallawarra Power Station is a 435-megawatt (583,000 hp) combined cycle natural gas power station in the city of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia. Owned and operated by EnergyAustralia, the station is the first of its type in New South Wales and produces electricity for the state during periods of high demand. It is located on the western shore of Lake Illawarra in the suburb of Yallah. The station comprises a 260-megawatt (350,000 hp) gas turbine and a 160-megawatt (210,000 hp) steam turbine unit and has a total capacity of 435 megawatts (583,000 hp). It uses many of the previous power station's structures including the cooling system channels from Lake Illawarra. The power station is connected to the state grid via a 132kV switching station maintained by Endeavour Energy (Previously known as Integral Energy). TRUenergy has also indicated that an additional power plant is being considered for the site, to be known as Tallawarra B.