Development
of industrial and commercial property in Johannesburg West and the Main Reef Corridor.
History:
Throughout
history, on a world wide basis, strip development has occurred, initially
prompted by natural features such as rivers and contours of land and then by
access to industry and business such as gold mining in Johannesburg.
In
recent years these strips have provided natural 'Corridors of Development' along
major route-ways. Our interest
here is in the routes providing the Development Corridors of
newer Industrial and Business areas outside the N1 Johannesburg Ring Road.
This ring road forms a broad arc to the North and West of Johannesburg.
Main
Reef Road: The
Main Gold Reef follows a line across the Witwatersrand from Springs in the
East to Randfontein and Westonaria in the West. The main development of
the western area commenced over 100 years
ago when George Harrison, an Australian gold digger discovered what he
considered to be "a payable goldfield".
Rapidly the population
of the area expanded and later, in 1886, the Government proclaimed the farms of,
Langlaagte, Paardekraal, Vogelstruisfontein and Roodepoort. Over
the course of years and after various disruptions, such as the Boer War, the many Industrial strikes,
and finally the second World War, gold continued to be mined.
Main Reef
Road and the nearby Industrial areas of Industria, Longdale and Croesus started
to develop and expand. Ownership
of land along the section of Main Reef Road west of Wibsey Dip, (see map), was almost
entirely in the hands of the "Consolidated Main Reef Mines and Estate
Limited".
By the mid 1960's many of these mines had been closed as
the economic gold had already been extracted.
The mining company looked
to further value in the land and in 1968 a "Properties" arm was
established within Rand Mines (the overall owner) to plan, proclaim and market
the now disused mining land.
Back to top
of page
| 
