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Ballarat was named after an Australian gold camp by one of its first residents, an Australian immigrant named George Riggins It was in the original Australian town of Ballarat that the first gold was discovered in that country in 1851. Ballarat sits at the base of the Panamint Mountain Range, Ballarat began in 1897 as a supply point for the mines in the canyons of the Panamint Mountain Range. The main mine supporting the town was the Radcliffe in Pleasant Canyon just east of town. Between the years of 1898 and 1903, the Radcliff would produce 15,000 tons of gold ore.
The town was founded in 1897. In its heyday...from 1897 to 1905...Ballarat had 400 to 500 residents. It hosted seven saloons, three hotels, a Wells Fargo station, post office (that opened in 1897), school, a jail and morgue, but no churches. Ballarat was a place for miners and prospectors in the area to resupply and relax.
The town began its decline when the Ratcliff Mine, in Pleasant Canyon east of town, suspended operations. Other mines nearby also began to play out, and in 1917 the post office closed and all that remained were a few diehard prospectors and desert rats.
In the 1960s, Charles Manson and the "Manson Family" of killers moved into a ranch south of Ballarat, and left graffiti in the town. The 1969 movie Easy Rider has a scene filmed in Ballarat; after arriving in the town, Peter Fonda's character, Wyatt, removes his Rolex watch and throws it away before he and Dennis Hopper's character, Billy, head east on their motorcycles towards New Orleans.
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