History
Though proper mining operations started only in 1880 the actual mining of gold ore itself is stated to go back many centuries. There are archival references to the Cholas of south India running small mining pits in the region and there are some references to Kolar being important for similar reasons under the Vijayanagara rulers. Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan attempting to extract gold from the Kolar pits with the help of French geologists is a recorded concern of the East India Company factors. Certainly, after the defeat of Tipu Sultan in 1799 and the "discovery" of gold in Kolar by one Captain Warren in 1802, there is curtain on Kolar till about 1850 when Michael Lavalle turned up in England and settled in his estate as a gentleman who made his fortune from the gold mines of Kolar. A joint stock company floated in England by Lavalle & his associates applied for a proper mining license from the Mysore government in 1873 which license was then sold to the British John Taylor & Company.
The current mines have an official history of about 130 years, beginning from 1880 when the first mines under a License were started by John Taylor & Company. Owing to the secret nature of the operation and the tight security under which it worked the owners preferred to import labour from the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu and successive generations of these Tamilian (mainly dalit) workers continued to work in the mines. As operations expanded some people from the surrounding areas were also inducted in the labour force. The small town of KGF was born as a habitation of these mainly tamilian dalit and a few hundred kannadiga workers on the outside and a core group of about 100 to 200 British Colonial, including Anglo-Indian, families on the inside. Even today KGF is a small centre of an eclectic Tamil-Kannada culture.
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