Roodepoort
South Africa · Africa
About Roodepoort
Roodepoort (locally ROOR-də-poort) is a city in the Gauteng province of South Africa. Formerly an independent municipality, Roodepoort became part of the Johannesburg municipality in the late 1990s, along with Randburg and Sandton. Johannesburg's most famous botanical garden, Witwatersrand National Botanical Gardens (now renamed Walter Sisulu National Botanical Garden), is located in Roodepoort.
In 1884, brothers Fred and Harry Struben, having discovered gold on the farm Wilgespruit at the western end of the Witwatersrand, were granted concessions to mine the area. When George Harrison's find at Langlaagte came to light and gold fever took hold, the Struben brothers were joined by a swarm of gold diggers. Other areas such as Maraisburg were prospected and mined by A.P. Marais and at Florida, the owners were van der Hoven, Bantjies and Lys. Though the Struben brothers' Confidence Reef bore little gold and their mine was unprofitable, the ramshackle town that grew around it became the Roodepoort Municipality in 1904. Incorporating the towns of Hamburg, Florida and Maraisburg, Roodepoort became a city in 1977, and has since developed as one of Johannesburg's most predominantly...
Overview adapted from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA. Photography via Wikimedia Commons.