Charlie & Michael Crowder
Charlie and Mick and their brothers, Hughie, George and Peter, were renowned bush men. They worked for the government and station holders as stockmen, dam excavators, bore drillers and scrub rollers, mainly on the Eyre Peninsula but further north as well. Scrub rolling consisted of tearing up scrub by dragging a heavy chain between two teams of horses. The vegetation was then piled up for later burning.
The Crowder brothers had a dugout, where the Old Timers Mine is now. It was connected to the rest of the town by informal tracks. The area was known as Crowders Gully since 1918 or earlier.
Jack and Edna Brewster lived there. It was the location of their first shop. There was also a smithy there.
In the 1980s,when Ron and Jenny Gough created the tourist venture now known as The Old Timers Mine, their work uncovered cavities, shafts, and old mine workings from Coober Pedys earliest days.
Charlie Crowder was born in Hamley Bridge, about 1870, and he died in 1945 in Wudinna.
