Editing Hopetown (section)

==History==
<!-- [[WP:NFCC]] violation: [[File:EurekaDiamond.jpg|thumb|200px|left|The Eureka Diamond found at Hopetown]] -->
Hopetown was founded in 1850 when Sir [[Sir Harry Smith, 1st Baronet|Harry Smith]] extended the northern frontier of the [[Cape Colony]] to the [[Orange River]]. A handful of settlers claimed ground where there was a natural ford over the Orange River, and by 1854 a frontier town had developed. Hopetown was named after [[William Hope (Cape Colony)|William Hope]], Auditor-General and Secretary of the Cape Colony Government at the time, and is often mistaken for a town in the [[Free State (province)|Free State]], South Africa, called [[Hoopstad]].

Hopetown was a quiet farming area until several large diamonds, most notable the [[Eureka Diamond]] and the [[Star of South Africa (Diamond)|Star of South Africa]], were discovered there between 1867 and 1869.<ref name="williams-115">{{cite book|last=Williams|first=Gardner Fred|title=The diamond mines of South Africa|publisher=New York, B. F. Buck & company| year=1904| page=115| url=https://archive.org/stream/diamondminesofso01willrich#page/123/mode/1up|access-date=2009-07-25}}</ref><ref name="KTC-13">{{cite book|last=Roberts|first=Brian|title=Kimberley: turbulent city|publisher=New Africa Books|year=1976|page=13|isbn=978-0-949968-62-3}}</ref>
The [[Cape Government Railways]] were founded in 1872, and the [[Cape Colony|Cape]] government decided to run the main western line, between the [[Kimberley, Northern Cape|Kimberley]] diamond fields and [[Cape Town]] on the coast, directly through Hopetown. The ford was upgraded to a railway bridge in 1884.
<ref>Burman, Jose (1984). ''Early Railways at the Cape''. Cape Town. Human & Rousseau, p.92. {{ISBN|0-7981-1760-5}}</ref>