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Article: History of Johannesburg.
- Article from:
- Mining Journal
- Article date:
- September 8, 2000
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Mining Journal Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Although Johannesburg was founded in 1886 its birth could just as easily have come at any time in the preceding 40 or so years. There is some fragmentary evidence that gold was first discovered on the Witwatersrand (Ridge of White Waters) in 1834 by Carel Kruger, who was hunting in the area. What is known with more certainty is that John Henry Davis, an English geologist, prospected around Krugersdorp in 1852, apparently with some success, and that Pieter Jacob Marais found traces of gold in the Jukskei River, just north of the present Sandton municipal boundary, in 1853.
During the 1870s and early 1880s, mining activities moved ever closer to the present site of ...