Leigh Creek

Leigh Creek, town and coalfield, east-central South Australia, 350 miles (563 km) by rail north of Adelaide. The original town was named for Harry Leigh, an employee at the local sheep station in the 1850s. Lignite coal, discovered there in 1888, was mined underground from 1892 to 1908 and then abandoned until 1941, when wartime shortages forced the government to explore the possibilities of reopening the field. By 1944 commercial quantities of coal were being...