The History of Koingnaas – PART 3
Diamonds In Namaqualand
The first diamonds in Namaqualand are discovered in 1925 in Port Nolloth, a small harbour town that was built to export copper-ore mined in Okiep and Springbok.
Port Nolloth is about 150 km north of Koingnaas and between these two points is a farm named Kleinzee (KleyneZee in 1924) that later become one of the center points of the diamond mining industry in Namaqualand.
Two teachers find a diamond in the walls of the new local school building on the farm Kleinzee, 80 km north of Koingnaas, and broke the wall down.
Within a month 500 carets of diamonds are found on this farm in Kleinzee.
The farm Kleinzee is offered to the Government in Cape Town in 1928 for 200 English pounds and they say “no”. Mining rights in Kleinzee goes to Cape Coast Exploration which later become the De Beers Mining Company.
De Beers start mining diamonds in Koingnaas in 1968. The diamonds in the Koingnaas area are small but of a very high quality, however, in 1971 mining in Koingnaas is halted for 4 years due to bad market conditions.
During this time the town of Koingnaas is being build from scratch and on 22 August 1976 the town is officially opened by Harry Oppenheimer, Chairman of the De Beers group.
Full scale production is achieved in 1978.
Diamonds are mined (swept) from the bedrock that is between 10 to 30 meters deep inland. More than 95% of the diamonds in the Koingnaas basin is high quality precious stones.
The town of Koingnaas boost with a great infrastructure are linked to the now buzzing town of Kleinzee 65km away.
More than 900 people – working for the mining company – stay in Koingnaas permanently. About 150 house where build for families and other accommodation were provided for individuals.
A number of recreation clubs are run by the company and residents including a tennis club, rugby club, swim club and much more.
Schools are in Kleinzee and children travel every day from Koingnaas. A creche is built in Koingnaas for toddlers.
In 2008 the De Beers company seize their mining activities in Koingnaas and sell a few mining contracts in independent mining groups.
In 2015 De Beers sell the entire town and three farms (Koingnaas, Somnaas and Swartlintjies) for R1 each to the Kamiesberg Municipality.
In 2016 all the houses in Koingnaas are sold on private auction to individual buyers.
Today the town in private owned and run by the Kamiesberg Municipality.