were being constructed. Adjoining the Great Central mine was the less developed South Mount Hope mine, the property of “Brown and party”. Seven miles north-west of Mount Hope township was the undeveloped Mount Allen copper mine. By 1883 the New Mount Hope mine was employing 200 men and boys and had produced 2,088 tons of ore to produce 431 tons of copper. A township of 800 people had grown up around the mine with four hotels, a billiard hall and boxing saloon, four stores, a post office and a bank. This was a prosperous period for the New Mount Hope company; for several years dividends of 2s. 6d. per share were paid to shareholders. In November 1884 portions of Crown Lands were “declared to be set apart” as a site for “the village of Nombinnie”. The surveyed government township of Nombinnie was located south of the established Mount Hope township. Most references to the name ‘Nombinnie’ are found in official government publications or newspapers quoting government sources. To residents the township name remained as ‘Mount Hope’. By May 1888 none of the surveyed allotments had been sold “and only the surveyor’s pegs and ditches remain to mark the site”. In November 1901 it was reported that there “about a score of new dwellings” in the surveyed township “and others are in process of erection”. Copper prices declined during the mid-1880s and the “unprecedented depression in the copper market” adversely affected the balance sheets of the Mount Hope mining companies. In late 1885 and early 1886 both the Great Central and the New Mount Hope mines were closed down “in consequence of the low price of copper, and the expense of carting the ore to the port”. Both mines remained closed for two years. In early 1888 both the companies were "induced by a favourable turn in the market" to restart the mines at Mount Hope. The township had deteriorated to a marked degree after two years of the mines being closed. In May 1888 Mount Hope was described as “a long straggling” township, which “does not look its best at the present time”. Near the mine were “numbers of ruins where mud or bark huts once stood” and the street running over the spur of the hill was “lined by a number of weatherboard stores and shops, many of which have been closed for the past two years”. The publican