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Clip description
This clip from a colour home movie filmed by Ernest Gourlay in approximately 1951 shows men constructing a hanger or warehouse with a vaulted roof. It shows men bolting together and erecting the trusses. This is followed by panning shots of the finished construction without the roof.
It then cuts to black and white footage of salt pan mining in South Australia. There are images of a small train moving the salt to the processing plant and the carts tip their salt into a hopper. There are scenes of men working the salt mine, breaking up and cutting the salt off the ground, then loading it onto the train. It also shows the men laying tracks and the equipment used in the processing.
Curator’s notes
Eighty percent of Australia’s salt was mined in South Australia before the 1960s when Western Australia took over much of Australia’s salt mining. This clip from a home movie filmed by Ernest Gourlay captures a small part of the salt mining process.
