The Mintabie Opal Field Group

In the early 1930s, just a few years before Alcoholics Anonymous came into being in America, opal mining began in Mintabie, a very remote area about 1,200 kilometers northwest of Adelaide, South Australia, and about 500 kilometers south of Alice Springs in Australia's "Red Center." By 1976 large earth-moving equipment was brought in as the enormous commercial potential of this field was realized.