A must-read 🌸🌺 Source:www.karoospace.co.za

Historic Jagersfontein The little southern Free State town of Jagersfontein is a favourite with geologists and historians. Here’s why, says JULIENNE DU TOIT. Photographs by CHRIS MARAIS www.karoospace.co.za Jagersfontein is a dorp with its formerly bright lights dimmed, but still shining. It used to be a diamond boomtown until De Beers left in 1971. Driving through today, you see little left of the wealth that was once extracted here. You’ll find three Chinese shops (“Lay-buys” offered), a Pep Store and a Standard Bank, three butcheries and a set of burnt-out municipal buildings. The latter being, obviously, a testament to service delivery protests in 2007. The Jagersfontein magic is still there, however. You just need two conditions for it to become clear: early morning light and a certain angle on Meteor Street. Then you will see a block of Herbert Baker-design buildings that have spare, harmonious lines. In the quiet pink of early morning beauty, these buildings relive the grace they must have had decades ago. The “Baker Block” is best viewed when all is quiet in the town except for the distant tweet-tweet of reversing trucks, which never stops. [A new mine has been set up to sift through the abandoned mine dumps.] By 8.30 am, the buildings revert back to Small Town Main Street: a Standard Bank and a Pep Stores and Malik Cell Phone Shop and Ekasi Kitchen. With people milling about under its rather striking wrought iron pillars. In Malik Cell Phone Shop Malik Munir, who lived in Jagersfontein for a year, says life is all right here. He shrugs. He is one of a number ( the only) of Pakistanis in Jagersfontein, sending most of their earnings back to their families in the home country. “Jagersfontein is a good place” says Malik. “At least it’s quiet, not like Johannesburg.” We duck into a grocery shop to hide away from a crazy old woman in the street (she demanded sole copyright and world re-sell rights to every photo we took in town) and find a young Chinese man sitting behind the cash till. He looks like the most bored somebody in Jagersfontein today. “What’s your name?” we asked. “David.” “David Who?” Total silence. OK, then. Other shops around the square and along the main street include the Jagersfontein Mark en Gesondheidswinkel, Shane Electrical, Hendrikz Begrafnis Ondernemers, Jagersfontein Trading Post (“Oop vir Koop, Verkopers en Pand.”). The old bank building is now a kind of night club (Spotlite Pub and Grill) and throbs with loud music in the late afternoons. There is also a brand new Checkers USave supermarket, Lektronic Furniture, A2 Cell Sound Repair Cellphone SameTime. Gillian Vermaak, an old friend and long-time local Jagersfonteiner, remembers what this town used to be like. “We arrived here in 1976, when the after-effects of the diamond economy were still enough to keep ‘Jagers’ buoyant.” She tells us one of the stores in the “Baker Block” was called Van der Merwe & Joubert. It was run by a tremendously large tannie called Tannie Mara and her husband Van van der Merwe. She sat on her chair all day long. Any enquiries for what the shop sold (everything from groceries to bicycles and hairpins) was met with a wave at the contents. “Have a look for yourself” she would say. Rabie General Dealers occupied the site where Pep Stores now stands. Here you could find pots, pans, crockery, blankets, household goods. Nothing much has changed. During the winter months old man Rabie would sit in the window of his shop, dressed in his shorts and short sleeved shirt, warming himself in the wintery sun. The kids would crawl past his counter into the back, steal some sweets and crawl back out again. (drop caps) Jagersfontein might not bring a gleam to a tourist’s eye, but just mention the name to any geologist worth his shovel and he’ll do a jig on the spot. That’s mainly because there are rocks around here that could be from (600)400 kilometres below the Earth’s surface, in the heart of the planet’s upper mantle. The De Beers closure in 1973 was a tragedy for this formerly delightful little town. This had been South Africa’s first diamond boomtown. The first air fatality in Africa occurred here, as did the South Africa’s most prestigious horse race meet of the late 1800s. King Edward VIII, then the Prince of Wales, spent three days in Jagers (as it’s affectionately known) during a 1925 Royal visit. Jagersfontein’s Big Hole is even bigger than Kimberley’s – deeper and wider – much to the chagrin of tourism entrepreneurs in the better known town up in the Northern Cape. The mine dumps here are being re-mined and are thought to contain billions of rands in diamonds. As recently as 1999, gardener Oom Piet Oerson found a 12 carat diamond in his employer’s garden, where mine dump sand had been brought in as filler. (After many anxious days, he was given a reward by De Beers – a third of the stone’s value.) [drop cap] William le Barrow, photographer and scribe for Jagersfontein Mine during its heyday in the 1940s and 1950s, records that the town was originally a Griqua farm, named for chieftain Jacobus Jagers(Jager Afrikaner). The farm was then bought for 30 pounds in 1856 by Cornelius Johannes Visser, a rough character by all accounts. His favourite sport, according to Le Barrow, was to “hunt leopards on foot and dispatch them with half a pair of sheep shears secured to a stick”. But Visser died before he ever benefited from the diamonds lying under the earth of his farm, although some say he did once pick up a shiny stone that proved to be a diamond after his death. His widow Jacoba Magdelena Cecilia Visser inherited the farm, which just happened to be on the road to the diamond diggings along the Orange River at Pniel and Klipdrift in 1869. In those days, diamonds were always associated with rivercourses, but a certain Dr CW Neebe of nearby Fauresmith pointed out to the Widow Visser that there were olivines, garnets and rubies on her farm, stones usually associated with diamonds. Her overseer, a man by the name of De Klerk, then began poking about in the gravel of a dry stream-bed where he saw some garnets, and in 1870, found a diamond of fifty carats. A few diamonds more and a stream of hopeful diggers began arriving – trying their luck in the world’s first ‘dry’ diamond mine, in 1870, a year before the diamond rush began in nearby Kimberley, 130 km west. Each digger paid a royalty of two pounds a month to Mrs Visser for the privilege of working 20 square feet. For many years, some would say everything that happened in Jagersfontein “occurred by the grace of God and Mrs Visser”. In fact, it’s said that there is even an entry in the old records at the Magistrate’s Court with the very same words. [drop cap] Where a digger goes, rowdiness inevitably follows. There were 34 bars and eventually, five hotels. Like all mining towns, Jagers has a few choice anecdotes from the rough early years. Like the one about of the habitual drunkard who fell into the mine hole one night after a good few too many. Fortunately he had the presence of mind to grab wildly at the root of a tree and save himself. For the rest of the night, he hung on, his fingers and whole body cramping and aching as he prayed. “Please let me live, and I promise, so help me, that I will never drink another drop.” As first light dawned, though, he saw that he hadn’t fallen down the mine hole at all, but a small excavation. The bottom was only six inches from his feet. “That deserves a drink,” he declared. One of the five hotels (long ago burnt down) had swing doors and a dinner gong suspended between two large elephant tusks. It was the scene of many a great party to celebrate the finding of yet another blue-white beauty. [drop cap] The environment was harsh too. The lack of water, difficult conditions and lack of expertise among the diggers meant that Kimberley flourished and became famous, while Jagersfontein stumbled. Only the astounding quality of the occasional finds kept the miners interested. But in 1878 a number of experienced miners from Fauresmith and from the gold mines of Australia came to Jagersfontein. So grateful were the townsfolk that some of the streets of Jagersfontein are still named after them. In 1880, the Australian Kerr brothers found a beautiful 115 carat diamond they named the Emma. And in the same year, the first steam gear engine was installed, making processing the diamond-bearing rock somewhat easier. It was named “The Pioneer”. The year 1893, though, really put Jagersfontein on the map. That was the year the Excelsior diamond was discovered by a worker who was sweeping up gravel and loading it onto a truck. He hid the stone from the overseer and delivered it direct to the mine manager. For this he received a reward of 500 pounds, plus a horse with saddle and bridle. History, alas, does not record his name. The Excelsior was the largest gem quality rough diamond to have been found in the world at the time. What was exceptional about Jagersfontein diamonds – and what attracted the attentions of Elizabeth Taylor and Al Capone – was their sheer clarity. Diamonds of the first water, they were called. That was before the designation blue-white was coined, and Jagers stones set the standard. In 1912, Jagersfontein became the second town in South Africa (and the first in the Orange Free State) to be given electricity and piped water. The water was supplied via a unique system of coin-operated water pumps on the street corners. One water penny, as they were called, would yield precisely three gallons. Many of the hydrants, made by Stewarts and Lloyds with silver-painted lion heads, still stand. Sadly, like the town itself, they roar no more. ENDS STORY [box] JAGERSFONTEIN LIGHTS There are still shiny gems in Jagersfontein, and they are not all diamonds. At the old De Beers building, just one block down from the main road through town, you’ll find Glaasstudio, where Gillian Vermaak and a small team of crafters create export-quality goods from fine wire and bright beads. Their creations can be found in outlets all over the country. In addition, Gillian is employed as the administrator for the Itumeleng Community Trust, responsible for the Jagersfontein Develpments (Pty) Ltd social investment initiatives. Since 2012 the Trust has: • Established a recycling project that has employed 180 people and removed more than 100 tons of waste from the town and township. • Awarded bursaries to 30 students enabling them to attend the South African College of Tourism and the Tracker Academy in Graaff-Reinet . • Forty two young people have been awarded sponsorships to cover first year tertiary fees, books and accommodation at recognised higher learning institutions. • Sponsored crèches and primary school with blankets, playground equipment and kitchenware. • Plans for the establishment of an Artisan Training Centre where students will learn construction trades; plumbing, industrial carpentry, bricklaying, paving and painting are nearing completion. • Established a fund, administered by the local trustees, whereby sporting and educational community efforts are supported. • An educational Family Maths and Science program in collaboration with the University of the Free State at the three local schools. The program is extended yearly. • A driving Licence program that enables young people to acquire their licences • In mid-June thirty young people will be attending a three week security guard training course at one of the security training colleges in Bloemfontein. Their training fees, accommodation and transport will be provided.