Mandy Khan
Letterhead from Nabob & Mandy Khan’s general store, 1912. (National Archives of Australia.)
Mandy Khan (sometimes Mande) was born in 1885. In the early days, Khan ran a general store in Morilla Street in association with his uncle, Cream Bux, a Cumborah storekeeper. The Indian immigrants from Punjab were hawkers in this district at the turn of the century, “Buyers of hides, sheepskins, etc.”
A 1914 docket in the LRHS collection shows sales of rivets, enamel paint and brushes, and another in 1911 shows a shovel, matches, soap, boots, trousers, a shirt and tie. “General Storekeepers” is in large print on the dockets.
Khan's store was on the site of Bluey Motel. By 1928, the family moved to Bollon in Queensland where Khan was once again a shopkeeper.
There were several Khan children. Two sons mined here, Ray at Shearer’s Six Mile and Gerald at the Nine Mile.
Mandy Khan was killed in a train accident on 1 August 1942 at Innisfail, Queensland, and is buried at Mount Gravatt Cemetery.
Signature of Mandy Khan, sourced from correspondence dated 19 February 1912.
Article: Research by Leisa Carney, edited by Russell Gawthorpe. LRHS research compiled by Len Cram and Barbara Moritz. Sources: The Lightning Ridge Book, Stuart Lloyd, 1967, p. 108; Lightning Flash Newspaper, 2 May 1974, 10 May 1979; Lightning Ridge - The Home of the Black Opal: Unique to the World, Gan Bruce, 1983, p. 81; Walgett Spectator, 27 April 1916, 18 May 1916.