In September, 1898, the railway line to Kalgoorlie was opened for traffic. The trade of Fremantle expanded rapidly; the large public works of the Mundaring Weir, the new harbour and new railways brought a continuous stream of people to the town. The building of hotels, banks, warehouses, shops and residences reached a high level, if not a peak period. Skilled tradesmen in all classes of trades had a good year. The increased gold yield gave confidence to financial, shipping, insurance and mercantile institutions, and their increased activities were reflected in the trade passing through the Customs and banks. (Hitchcock: 76)
Construction of CY O'Connor's Goldfields Water Scheme begun.
The second road bridge across the river was built 1896-8 just downstream of the first and called the Low Level Bridge. It was wider and stronger but much lower. It was required by the increased commercial traffic mostly as a result of gold discoveries.
The Salvation Army Citadel in William Street erected.
This page incorporates material from Garry Gillard's Freotopia website, that he started in 2014 and the contents of which he donated to Wikimedia Australia in 2024. The content was originally created on 6 August, 2015 and hosted at freotopia.org/timeline/1898.html (it was last updated on 1 June, 2020), and has been edited since it was imported here (see page history). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.