The History of Pomona

Pomona is situated on the Atlantic Coast approximately 85 kilometres south of the town of Luderitz in Namibia.

The first diamond in this area which as then known as German South West Africa, was found by a railway worker in 1908 while clearing the line of a new railway that was being built. This was handed to August Stauch, a railway inspector, who had it confirmed as a diamond. This caused a diamond rush.

Stauch, with Professor Robert Scheibe from Berlin, explored south of where the first diamond was found and established the fabulously rich Pomona concession where diamonds were so prolific that they were picked from the surface by hand. Over a million carats were recovered over the next two years from Pomona which was the richest diamond mine in the world at that time.

The various areas within Pomona still bear the names of Stauch and his family – Ida-tal, the richest area, was named after his wife. Stauch-lager his camp, Barbara-tal and Mariannen-tal after his daughters and Scheibe-tal after his collaborator Robert Scheibe.

Stauch invested millions of Marks into the infrastructure of the town which grew rapidly and is still today much as it was at the height of the boom. Since 1908 diamond mining was disrupted from time to time due to periodic depressions and war.

The Pomona area is now controlled by NAMDEB, a joint venture company between the Namibian Government and DeBeers. Namibian Resources Plc, through its wholly owned subsidiary Sonnberg Diamonds, successfully mines the Pomona area under a contract with NAMDEB.

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