There are places in Africa where the landscape seems to hold on to its past. Barberton is one of them.
Surrounded by the rugged mountains of Mpumalanga, Barberton today is a quiet and beautiful Lowveld town. But more than 140 years ago, these same mountains were alive with excitement, adventure and the fever of a great gold rush.
It was in the early 1880s that the first important discoveries began attracting prospectors to the De Kaap Valley. Men arrived from far and wide, carrying little more than their tools, determination and dreams of finding a fortune.
Among them was Edwin James Bray, a persistent prospector who believed there was something far more valuable hidden among the rocks of the surrounding mountains.
Bray’s Remarkable Discovery
In 1885, Bray’s persistence was rewarded.
High in the hills above Barberton, he discovered a remarkable quartz outcrop containing exceptionally rich gold. The place became known as Bray’s Golden Quarry and would become one of the most famous discoveries in the history of Barberton.
The news spread rapidly.
Almost overnight, the quiet mountains became a hive of activity. Prospectors scrambled over the hills searching for their own piece of the reef. Claims were pegged, companies were formed and fortunes were made—and sometimes lost—on the promise of gold.
Bray’s discovery ultimately led to the development of Sheba Mine, which began mining in 1886. The richness of the ore was extraordinary. The early workings produced remarkable quantities of gold, confirming that Bray had indeed found something very special.
A mining settlement known as Eureka City grew around the Sheba workings. Barberton itself grew rapidly as miners, businessmen, adventurers and fortune seekers poured into the area.
For a short but remarkable period, Barberton became one of the most exciting places in southern Africa.
A Mountain of Memories
Today, it is difficult to imagine the noise and excitement that once filled these peaceful mountains.
Where there are now quiet roads and bush-covered hills, there were once miners working underground, wagons carrying ore, prospectors searching for the next discovery and businessmen anxiously watching the rise and fall of mining shares.
Yet the mountains have not forgotten.
The old mine workings and historic sites around Sheba remain reminders of those pioneering days. They tell a story of courage, hardship, determination and the enduring human desire to discover what lies hidden beneath the earth.
Edwin James Bray’s discovery was more than the finding of a rich reef. It helped change the destiny of Barberton forever.
Whenever I travel through this part of Mpumalanga, I find myself thinking about those early pioneers. Standing among these ancient hills, it is not difficult to imagine a prospector like Bray walking through the bush, studying the rocks and wondering whether the next piece of quartz might reveal the fortune he was searching for.
He could hardly have known that his discovery would become part of Barberton’s history—and that, more than a century later, people would still be telling the story of Bray’s Quarry and the beginning of Sheba Mine.
