Glen Davis - A Town that Vanished

[By Chris Haldane]

True, the US has the Grand Canyon, but the second-largest canyon in the world is just three hours from Sydney. In fact, the Capertee Valley is actually 1km wider than the Grand Canyon, and on a trip  west I was treated to breathtaking views of it looking towards Pantoneys Crown with its long flat-top plateau. 

It’s also in this valley that the ruins of the former mining town of Glen Davis can be found. I’d never heard of it until I was researching for my trip to document the painting of the silos at Portland (which I wrote about in another blog post). Glen Davis came into existence to make fuel from shale oil during WWII due to the demand for petrol supplies which were being threatened by shipping attacks in the Pacific Ocean. Today it’s almost a ghost town with only about 25 people living there, and its ruins crumble in silence, surrounded by the sandstone cliffs of the beautiful Capertee Valley.

Its most dominant structure is one of the original two fire-belching retorts used for shale oil extraction. It looms over you with a powerful presence in the valley, and you can’t help but reflect on what it was like to live and work there with the retorts working day and night. It is documented that early housing conditions were terrible, the early miners often building their dwellings from materials like hessian, which must have been freezing cold in winter! But by 1947, because of its isolation, the company supplied for its workers facilities like a golf course, tennis courts and a bowling green, and the school had 7 teachers. At its biggest, Glen Davis had 2500 people, which is hard to imagine today, as you wander the few deserted streets, so quiet except for the bird songs in the surrounding bush. 

The mine site is also scattered with skeletons of other buildings. Looking through the window of one, I nearly died of shock when I noticed a snake curled lazily over the sill right beside me! At that point a thunderstorm broke overhead, adding to the remote and rather eerie atmosphere of the place. 

The old chemist  shop is now a museum of early medical supplies, which I'm sure were often called for in a mining town such as this was. Not much remains of Glen Davis today except for a boutique hotel and a few houses; the mining venture was never viable and by 1952 it was closed. The plant was auctioned off and the subsequent owner apparently used the site as a dump, leaving cars, trucks & masses of other rubbish all over the place, looking rather foreboding in the rain, and providing quite a challenge for the current owners to clean up.

Although much of the site remains overgrown, as you walk through the ruins of Glen Davis you are very aware of the character and courage of those who lived and worked in this remote valley. These days all you’ll see are nature and history lovers and the odd sketcher like me!  

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