Digging in the chronicles of 120 years of Odendaalsrus

Author: Bishop JM Moshodi: Master Degree in Governance and Political Transformation – University of the Free State, South Africa

Digging in the chronicles of 120 years of Odendaalsrus: A life-line prospects for Gold in the Gold Fields

An article titled ‘Kutlwanong Township 120 Years On South African not so changing tapestry’ Dr. Selepe penned, inundated me. Allow me to journey in digging the 120 years of Odendaalsrus. Let me thank you once again for the courage you have on various stages of the Kutlwanong developmental project. The article makes me remember how ghost Banquo shook the murderer Macbeth to his core, causing him to cry out:

Avaunt! And quit my sight! Let the earth hid thee!
Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold;
Thou hast no speculation in those eyes
Which thou dost glare with!
(Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Act 3, Scene 4.)

In your case, you do not abdicate and cede the orient of the heavy burden of “sitting in gold and yet so impoverished as Kutlwanong”. You have a similar appearance in common equal to the people you refer to “Thabiso Masedi, Toloko Ntsane” and others, who understood the picturesque of the “new” Kutlwanong and its historical discoveries. Certainly, the people you bring up participated in the political life of Kutlwanong at the same time concentrating on educational and social matters.

Indeed, you remained warm-blooded and rejected to quit like they never turn down to give up and cede. You have set foot into a bandwagon to reposition the prospect of Odendaalsurs has; identical to the late Sipho Mutsi, Patrick Machedi, and others whose warm-blood remain alive to haunt the haunter.

You recount, “I understood half of the Science Olympiad Journal”. Together with your companions you “insisted in unearthing the art of science hidden in there”. Absolutely all you were genuine in pursuing a cause in the right direction. Anderson (1954: 99) comprehends your efforts “Science, in the generic sense, and in particular technology – the science of industry – have long played an important role in the operations of the gold mining industry”. He further insists with a deep emphasis that “as those operations increase in magnitude and complexity, so must we rely more and more on science to solve our many new problems”.

The account you scribed triggered me to grasp a bucket of water to rejoin a people who were and still are not deterred by the haunter. A people who continue to water the seed that was planted in Kutlwanong yesteryears. What you wrote seeks at its best to present the traces based on the very essence of the 120 years of Odendaalsrus.

Out of Southern Africa, the enigmatic Cecil Rhodes built an empire in the late 1800s. The entity he constructed attracted the brightest and bravest of a generation. But for the natives, another day was dawning (Smith. W.2006).

But as history unfolds, a continent is awakening. And on the horizon, there is a promise (Smith. W. 2001). A continent of break-taking beauty and bitter suffering. Africa with her two immeasurably of cultures clashing, mingling, and later recoiled (Smith. W. 2006: 672). The south of the African continent settled a small area that emerged as a part of the Gold Rush.

Fetherling. D & Fetherling. G (1988) concur that the first gold rush at all events was the first truly continental one. The first one on a grand scale and with gaudy characteristics by which later could be identified followed the discovery of Gold in 1800.

In South Africa there lies Orange Free the fourth province that includes the country’s longitudes 26o 30o and 27o east latitudes 27o 37o 53o and 28o 13o 43o south. This covers 1,260 square miles; which comprises parts of the districts of Odendaalsrus, Welkom, Bothaville, Kroonstad, Wesselsbron, Ventersburg, Theunissen and Winburg. (Coetzee. 1960: 2).

The village Odendaalsrus was discovered in 1878. A small town built is a farm owned by Jesaja Odendaal (Pathfinda. 2009). The Odendaal family owned the farm located 17 kilometers from Allandrige, in the heart of the Free State goldfields. Odendaalsrus was already established in 1899 and had a municipal status by 1912. It however started out as a poor and struggling town (Niehaber et al. 1982. 74; Oberholser et al. 1954. xx)

Odendaalsrus founded in 1912, a year older than something quite unpleasing the 1913 Natives Land Act (Gragramla. T.2001.69 & CIM).

The small town took to prominence when a secretary of the village management board was playing a gramophone in a local pub. Thousands of letters and telegrams from overseas investors were seeking advice as some addressed the letters to the ‘Lord Mayor of Odendaalsrus’ (Pathfinda. 2009).

Then, towards the end of the last century, shallow pits were sunk on an outcrop of Ventersdorp conglomerate on the farm Aandenk 227. Indeed, near Odendaalsrus, without a result, and in 1933 a borehole was put down to a depth of 4,046 feet near these abandoned pits. Gold was found but not in payable quantities and the project was abandoned. (Anderson. 1954)

The war years retarded the development of the area, but when World War II broke out in 1939, the results already achieved encouraged the belief that gold production on an extensive scale eventually take place south of the Vaal. How valid that belief was is clearly indicated in one glance at the strip of country embracing Allandrige, Odendaalsrus, Welkom, and Virginia to-day (Anderson, 1954:102). Gold continued to be the most important industry providing two-thirds of South African’s revenues and three-quarters of its export earnings. (Byrnes. 1996)

In 1936 the geophysical methods of prospecting began as undertaken in the Orange Free State. An investigation that started to culminate in the opening up of the Orange Free State goldfields were a few small areas in the goldfields were taken up. (Anderson, 1954.101). According to Coetzee (1960: 78), the lithological agreement took on the alternation of shaly and sandy rocks. This included the Jeppestown amygdaloid which was the thickness of the sedimentary units. It increased in the shale content downwards, decreasing in the amount of shaly material towards the Klerksdorp and Odendaalsrus.

The discovery of gold transformed the landscape of the north-western Free State. By 1954 three of the six mines surrounding Welkom has reached the production stage, among the towns was Odendaalsrus. By 1941, when it became apparent that important gold discoveries had been in the Free State, the Union Government established the Natural Resources Development Council, whose function was to coordinate the development of new industrial areas. This was to avoid haphazard development. Odendaalsrus was included for this kind of development (Rathanya, 2013: 30). Allandrige, in the north, served the Jeannette and Loraine mines; Odendaalsrus, nine miles south of Allandrige, served the two Freddies mines. (Anon 1954:18-19).

The taking shape of the Orange Free State history today; it was and still remains the mining history (Roberts. G. 1984: 83). The magnate Sir Ernest Oppenheimer (1947: 220) began a conversation thus:
“I am convinced that in its importance and in effects which it is going to have on the economy of South Africa the discovery of gold in the Orange Free State ranks with the two great previous discoveries of Kimberly and the Witwatersrand and I would like to tell you something about how this discovery came to be made. Odendaalsrust, the center of the new field, is at a distance of about 150 miles from Johannesburg and lies only about 20 miles from the main road and railway between Bloemfontein and Johannesburg. The new discovery, however, differed entirely from the discovery of the Witwatersrand in that the gold-bearing reefs in the Free State nowhere came to the surface and could only be explored by deep drilling. It will give you an idea of the magnitude of the prospecting work involved when I tell you that since 1936 about 136 miles of drilling have been accomplished in the Orange Free State”.

The magnate pointed out to what Roberts (1984:84) wrote “this short line running from the mainline at Hennenman, through Welkom to Odendaalsrus may one day become the life-line of the Orange Free State and Odendaalsrus and the growing new town Welkom was on the threshold of becoming of world renown”.

South African Digest (1964:14) confirmed what Roberts (1984) said that Odendaalsrus “may one day become the lifeline of the Orange Free State”.

On 18 December 1964 the paper published on a story title ‘Mine takeover’:

“An unprecedented building boom has prevailed in Odendaalsrus, an Orange Free State goldfields town since the Anglo American Corporation took over the “Freddies” Gold Mine. As a result, all talk of 18 months ago that Odendaalsrus was becoming a ghost town has now died away. Recently, four plots of ground, which 18 months ago were offered by the local church board at R2,000 a plot, were sold for a total of R18,000. The Town Council is now negotiating with the Odendaalsrus Gold and General Investment and extension Company for the purchase of 100 plots with a view to starting an economic housing scheme next year when a big influx of new citizens is expected”.

To reposition the work in progress of the Kutlwanong Development Trajectory, a poet Roy Campell in his publication Holism and Evolution makes this gesture:
The love of nature burning in his heart,
Our new St Francis offer us his book.

The people of Kutlwanong and Odendaalsrus “the love of nature is burning in their heart”. They desire and crave to see a prosperous Greater Odendaalsrus, which Roberts (1984) speaks about being a lifeline of Orange Free State.

Our Kutlwanong Development Trajectory (KDT) is hell-bent to grasp on the worthy initiative with many opportunities that are historical in nature. Our KDT should be “our new St Francis”. A Saint who offers the young and old, poor and the rich, workers and professionals, graduates, learners, students, and early childhood children “us” in this instance a “book” which is a project to resuscitate the life-line Roberts (1984) alludes on, of Life-Line Odendaalsurs. This would be about the equalization and integration of the Kutlwanong people in the mainstream of the history of the goldfields.

Practically a KDT that should steer the current real condition of Odendaalsrus people to a direction as envisage in its values and mission. This would be about changing the lives tapping of existing resources, especially how Odendaalsrus was catapulted in the four corners of the earth.

Eminent is how to be part of the player in a real sense. This would be to commence engaging the relevant stakeholders in the mining sector. For instance, on its preamble among others “these shafts are located near Odendaalsrus in the Free State province” and life of mine “Tshepong = 16 years – end of the year 2034 and Phakisa = 8 years – end of the year 2026”. The latter has only 5 years’ lifespan, while the mining rights expire on 10 December 2029. This is quite an intriguing expression of becoming a local actor. Indeed, that would impact on “custodians of the land on which these mines operate” argues Selepe. 2021.

Bibliography
Anderson, C.B, Development of the Orange Free State Gold Fields; Suid Afrikaanse Joernaal van Wetenskop November 1954. pp 99
Anon. 1954. The golden Free State. 1854-1954. Hundred years of progress. Bloemfontein: D. Francis & Co (Pty) Ltd.
Byrnes, R. M., 1996. South Africa: A Country Study. http://countrystudies.us/south-africa/23.htm . [Accessed 9 September 2021]
CIM. 2021. South Africa. 2021. https://www.south-africa-info.co.za/country/town/441/odendaalsrus. [Accessed 8 September 2021].
Coetzee, C. B. 1960. The Geology of the Orange Free State Gold-Field. Government Publication
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Pathfinda. Discover South Africa: Take your head out of the sand. http://pathfinda.com/en/odendaalsrus#! [Accessed 8 September 2021]
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Niehaber, P. J. & Le Roux. C. L. P. 1982. Vrystaat-Fokus. Pretoria: Sigma Press (Pty) Ltd.
Selepe Molapo. Dr. 2021. Kutlwanong Township 120 Years on South African not so changing tapestry. www.drmolaposelepe.com/articles [Accessed 8 September 2021]
Smith Wilbur. 2001. When The Lion Feeds. Macmillan, 2001.
Smith Wilbur, 2006. The Angels Weep. St. Martin’s Press. 2006
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Oberholser, J. J., Van Schoor, M. C. E & Maree, A. J. H. 1954. Souvenir Album of the Orange Free State. cape Town: The Citadel Press.
Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Act 3, Scene 4.
Figure 1 Source: Tshepong Phakisa 2018-2022 Social Labour Plan
Figure 2 Source: Rathanya. L. 2013 – Archaeological Scoping Report for the Proposed
Grootkop Solar Energy Archeological Consulting