Brakpan, Gauteng
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Brakpan is a gold and uranium mining town in Gauteng, South Africa. The name Brakpan was first used by British in the 1880s because of a non-perennial lake that would annually dry to become a "brackish pan".
[edit] History
The first activity which drew people to the area was the British coal mining of the 1880s and the large coal powered power station also built by the British. A tram line to Johannesburg was built at this time to service the power station.
The Main Reef Road linked Brakpan to all the other mining towns in the Witwatersrand. Brakpan was a suburb of Benoni from 1914-1919 when it was granted municipal status. The Brakpan miners were involved in the miners' strike of 1922. The town has gradually lost its importance as a gold mining area as the surrounding mines become low yield / high cost. Many British residents emigrated during the apartheid era leaving a vacumm in the town which was filled by Afrikaaner farmers who had lost interest in farming.
Expansions to the town in the early 1990s (example Brakpan North) and the opening of the Casino complex Carnival City have done little to dispel its Conservative image.
[edit] External links
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