Mogale City - Krugersdorp

Mogale City is an easy 30-minute drive from Johannesburg or Pretoria, 20 minutes from Lanseria Airport, and 60 minutes from OR Tambo International Airport.  Mogale City’s main town of Krugersdorp is a perfectly situated to explore this ‘rich in history’ destination.  The area has a rich history and culture that will interest any visitor.  It is named after Mogale wa Mogale, who took over the Po Chiefdom following the death of his father in the 1820s at the hands of Mzilikazi’s warriors.  The Batswana ba Po was one of the original tribes that inhabited the region. They were miners and traders of gold, with links to other peoples across the continent.  The contribution made by the chief and his people was long ignored, but in 2001 their status was restored with the renaming of the municipality from Krugersdorp Local Council to Mogale City.   The was formerly a mining city founded in 1887 by Marthinus Pretorius and named after Paul Kruger.   Apart from gold, manganese, iron, asbestos and lime are also mined in the area. This is the site of the December 1880 gathering at which more than 6,000 men vowed to fight for the Transvaal's independence. When gold was discovered on the Witwatersrand, a need arose for a major town in the west of the reef. The government bought part of the farm Paardekraal and named the new town after the Transvaal President Paul Kruger. The British built a concentration camp here during the Second Boer War to house Boer women and children.  In 1952 the West Rand Consolidated Mine was the first in the world to extract uranium as a byproduct of the gold refining process.  Don’t forget to visit the Krugersdorp Museum which was established in July 1993 and is housed in the Old Magistrate's Court, one of the town's oldest buildings.