Place:Katoomba, New South Wales, Australia

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source: Family History Library Catalog

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Katoomba is the chief town of the City of Blue Mountains in New South Wales, Australia, and the administrative headquarters of Blue Mountains City Council. Katoomba is situated on the Great Western Highway west of Sydney and south-east of Lithgow. Katoomba railway station is on the Main Western line.

Katoomba is a base for bush and nature walks in the surrounding Blue Mountains. At the 2016 census, Katoomba had a population of 7,964 people.^[1]

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

For thousands of years, the Blue Mountains were home to Aboriginal peoples, specifically, the Gundungurra and Darug tribes. They knew the area known as kedumba, meaning shiny, falling waters. Today, there are still many traditional Aboriginal peoples living in the Blue Mountains, where there are now a number of cultural sites that walk visitors through the region's rich past and share the customs and heritage of the local tribes.

Katoomba and nearby Medlow Bath were first developed as tourist destinations towards the end of the 19th century when a series of hotels were built and then repeatedly extended.

Coal and oil shale mining was also carried out in the Jamison Valley for many years, but when the seams were completely exhausted by the early 20th century, Katoomba was an established resort town. By the 1960s, Katoomba had somewhat declined, and several of its guest houses were converted for other purposes, including convalescent hospitals.

In the 1980s, the guest houses and hotels again became fashionable and many were restored.

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