Boulder, Western Australia


Boulder is a suburb in the Western Australian Goldfields, east of Perth and bordering onto the town of Kalgoorlie in the Eastern Goldfields region.
The Boulder Races were a significant event in early twentieth century goldfields region history.
The town maintained its separation from Kalgoorlie until the 1980s, however even prior to that era, many surveys and studies of the towns and their areas tended to join the names.
Prior to 1989 Boulder was a town, but it was merged with Kalgoorlie to form the City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder.
The population of Boulder in 1901 was 2,936, which increased to 5,658 in 1903.
At the 2006 census, Boulder had a population of 5,178. This had decreased to 4,825 by the 2016 census.
On 20 April 2010 Kalgoorlie-Boulder suffered a magnitude 5.0 earthquake which damaged several of the historic buildings in Boulder.

Military history

During World War 2, Boulder was the location of RAAF No.27 Inland Aircraft Fuel Depot, completed in 1942 and closed on 14 June 1944. Usually consisting of 4 tanks, 31 fuel depots were built across Australia for the storage and supply of aircraft fuel for the RAAF and the US Army Air Forces at a total cost of £900,000.