How Hill End's population exploded and disappeared overnight

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00:00Today we're in the historic town of Hilland, about an hour's drive north of Bathurst.

00:05As of the 2021 census, about 110 people live here in Hilland, but about 150 years ago,

00:11there was more than 8,500 within the town itself, and more than 30,000 people in the

00:17wider district around the town. Quite incredible when you think about what the town is today.

00:30So how did Hilland's population get so big so long ago? Well, 1851, the colonial rulers

00:39legalised gold prospecting. It led to hundreds of towns and settlements popping up overnight

00:44as people swarmed to the central west region, trying their best to find some gold and make it rich.

00:51So that pecan population came in early 1873. Tell us about the big finds of gold that happened

01:03only a few months before, particularly with Halterman.

01:06That's it. 1872, we had four world records for gold. The biggest, though, that brought the most

01:13attention was the world's largest single mass, the Bias and Halterman specimen. On the 19th of

01:18October 1872, 2 o'clock in the morning to be precise, they unearthed the world's largest single

01:25mass of gold, 3,000 ounces in one lump. Now, when the town peaked at that population in early

01:311873, you said by the end of the year, that population has dramatically plummeted. What would

01:37be the reasoning for it? Was it all these big finds of gold and other places popping up?

01:42So it was an overnight thing if they find gold somewhere else, which they did. These people

01:47weren't born here. They had no family here. They were living in make-do abodes. So it was

01:56a matter of if gold was found somewhere else, that's what they were going to change. It's

01:59a bit like a fisherman. You're fishing in one spot and someone finds fish in another spot

02:03and you go to that other spot.