(Closed to the public. Please view from street.)
Lot 504 Tower Street

Major’s Boarding House was recently closed to the public and is awaiting conservation work.

The boarding house, built between 1900 and 1920, is representative of the architecturally improvised structures built to accommodate miners.

The building is single-storey gabled cottage featuring a bullnose verandah with a corrugated iron dado baluster roof. The cottage has a typical two-roomed frontage, a kitchen with a large stove, an extension at the rear under a skillion (lean-to) roof and another separate extension with a gabled roof.

Thomas Major, an engineer with the Sons of Gwalia mine, is recorded as occupying a boarding house on Lot 504 Tower Street in 1923/24. The boarding house would almost certainly have been run by his wife.

In 1935, the Majors purchased the house on Lot 505 as a residence with the boarding house and camps on Lot 504.

The Rate Book entries from 1952 until 1958 show Mrs M. Major as owner, residing in Kalgoorlie.

Major’s Boarding House was restored in 1987 as part of the National Estate Grants Program. In 1995/96, work was done by volunteers under the Leonora Tourist Committee’s innovative auction of cottages for restoration.