Businesses have already realised the potential of Lucknow opening new ventures including a petrol station, café and homewares store and soon a renovated pub to join the established skin shop.

Other touristy stores are welcome.

Orange City Council owns the old Wentworth Mine and while lighting it up at night should look at taking people down in the cage even if only 15 or 20 metres.

What an attraction that would be.

Another lone poppet head and some rusty machinery is all that's left of the once fabulous mines.

But back in 1894 Lucknow had the richest gold mines in the world by several thousand ounces.

Then water flooded the underground tunnels and the mining companies unable to pump it out shut down their operations in the early 1900s.

Some of the best finds were in the 1860s when the Snobs' claim worked by two shoemakers yielded thousands of pounds.

So did the Bullocky's and John Bull claims.

The richest were the Phoenix and Golden Point.

At the Phoenix the veins were so rich at grass roots level the gold was shovelled into hand barrows and carried directly to the furnace.

Even in the good old days, when shares offered at two and sixpence rocketed in three years to 16 pounds 10 shillings, water proved a constant problem and forced prospectors to abandon their diggings.

Four hotels had opened by 1866, school, Catholic church, police station and lock-up, general store, butcher, blacksmith, bootmaker and baker.

Church services were held in a bark hut that doubled as a school until 1864.

Anglican and Wesleyan churches were built in 1873 and 1886.

Hopefully more businesses will now give Lucknow a go.

Talking about gold the Aussies picked up 17 gold medals at the Tokyo Olympics and we'll get more at the Paralympics bringing back memories of the Sydney games.

Noel Rawlinson who worked a small mine at Ophir where the first payable field in Australia was found in 1851 came up with the unique project to supply the precious metal for the Sydney winners' medals.

Other Orange gold mines did the same and it was given as a gift to the Olympic committee from the people of Orange.

Noel's mine was several hundred metres in the side of a hill. He used traditional methods including a small skip on wooden rails to bring the rock out and crushed it with a home-made machine the same as the old timers.

About 2000 miners worked Summer Hill Creek for a few months but by mid-1852 the rush was over with easier finds in the Turon River and other areas.

Chinese miners successfully reworked the old diggings and new prospectors looked for reef gold in the hills but they eventually gave up and now the area is left to a few hobby miners who still believe they'll find what they call 'the jeweller's shop'.

Paris has Le Coq Rico, London the Dorchester, Sydney the Aria, all five-star restaurants, and Orange? Well we once had Davo's Diner.

And Davo's, operating from a converted bus kitchen parked in a Summer Street petrol station driveway, probably did as good as any of them.

It was the only late-night oasis for hungry travellers, people who'd just knocked off work and drinkers who wanted to soak up their evening's fill.

Davo's remained a popular beacon year-round for people who stood patiently in a queue to buy their hot dogs or burgers with the works and then cheerfully head home long after the up-market takeaways had closed for the night.

Phil Kelly also had a hot dog stand that was a highly popular stop-over.

Orange late-nighters loved hot dogs, and they're still a popular treat, but a study at US University of Michigan on the nutritional impact of 6000 foods says every hot dog someone eats shortens their life by 36 minutes.

The survey goes on to say eating a peanut butter and jam sandwich adds more than half-an-hour to your life expectancy.

Can you believe that?

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