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HISTORY
Fraser’s Hill
 
Fraser’s Hill is named after Louis James Fraser. He was perhaps an accountant by profession but was also a man with a spirit of adventure. Having failed in a venture at gold mining in Australia, he migrated in the 1890s to the Malay States to seek his fortune in tin mining although there is no record of him being issued with a mining lease. He operated a transport business using mules and bullocks to collect tin ore from miners along the Tras-Kuala Kubu route. He lived at that time in a bare humble dwelling in Tras, probably because of the relative ease with which provisions and machinery could reach Tras up river in Pahang.
 
Later he moved his operations up the hill from the Gap using a bridle path to the site of mines on the hill. Soon, he closed down at Tras and moved up the hill himself. Official plans still mark the site of Fraser’s original house on the hill as ‘Fraser’s Bungalow’
 
The first official mining lease in the hill was issued in November 1899 to Abu bin Suradi and the last one in 1906 to Robert Lewis and Sempam Mining Company Limited. However, these mines did not last long as the ore was quickly depleted and the Chinese miners and farmers mostly moved away. By that time, Bukit Fraser was the recognized name of the hill but Fraser himself had become only a legendary figure.