Francistown – Scene of Southern Africa's first gold rush
Francistown began as one of the villages of the BaKalanga people. In 1867 the gold prospector Karl Mauch found the BaKalanga mining gold along the Tati River, and news of the Tati Goldfields sparked Southern Africa's first gold rush. The city is still surrounded by old, abandoned mines.
The present town was founded in 1897 near the Monarch mine and named after Daniel Francis, a prospector from Liverpool. That year the Tati Concessions Company sold off 300 plots, and a single main street parallel to the railway soon had hotels, shops and banks. Before independence, Francistown was the country's largest commercial centre. Today it is Botswana's second-largest city. Share your Francistown stories with us!