Cleared Line
Cleared Line is an opal field situated along both sides of the old Walgett Road, now Fred Reece Way. It was discovered in 1913 by brothers Jack and Albert Dominick. The Dominick family had arrived from White Cliffs in 1908. The eastern side of Cleared Line becomes the Telephone Line field where the old line used to cross.
The Cleared Line.
The field produced good black opal, typically found at a depth between 60 and 65 feet. The opal occurred in a single level beneath a distinctive one-foot-thick “steel band” of hard roof rock. Nobbies were described as being “as large as fists”.
According to The Lightning Ridge Book by Stuart Lloyd, Cleared Line had produced £47,000 by 1967. Bob Austin, one of the field’s early workers, took £6,000 in opal from his shaft after returning from the First World War.
Looking from the Cleared Line back towards town, 1930s.
The Cleared Line, 1950s.
The best claims on Cleared Line included those of the Dominick family, Bob Austin, Urwin and Brown, Steadman and Kelly, and Jack Boules.
Article: Research by Russell Gawthorpe and Leisa Carney, edited by Russell Gawthorpe. LRHS research compiled by Len Cram and Barbara Moritz. Sources: The Lightning Ridge Book, Stuart Lloyd, 1967, p. 70; Lightning Ridge - The Home of the Black Opal: Unique to the World, Gan Bruce, 1983, pp. 89-90; The occurrence of opal at Lightning Ridge and Grawin, with geological notes on County Finch, J. W Whiting & R. E. Relph, 1958, p. 10; Discover Opals: Before and Beyond 2000 with Surface Indications, Stephen Aracic, 1996, p. 142.