Dusty beginnings

Broken Hill Salvation Army was opened by Captain Cranwell in 1887 using Coombe’s Ironmongery in Argent Street for its meetings. Other Salvation Army corps (churches) followed: Broken Hill West in Gypsum Street, Broken Hill South in 1893 and Broken Hill North in 1895. In her book, Booth’s Drum, The Salvation Army in Australia 1880-1980, Barbara Bolton writes: “By 1895, in spite of an exodus of Broken Hill miners to Western Australia, the Army was maintaining four corps (churches) in the Silver City and people were being turned away because the halls could not contain them.”