Beaufort West became South Africa's first fully-fledged municipality in 1837 and is the birthplace of world famous heart surgeon Chris Barnard and politician Patricia de Lille. The area is also said to be a favourite with many ghosts. The mountain winds of the Nuweveld are said to carry the cries of a mother searching for her child. The waterspook whips up clouds to hide himself, while a Jewish peddler hitches a ride near Prince Albert and then disappears after getting out of your vehicle.
Circa 1878, the city fathers banished Blacks and Coloureds to the outskirts, probably the first location in South Africa. By the 1900s the township, called The Location, was home to 466 adults and 514 children, the majority of whom were Coloureds, and by 1925 the government proclaimed it a Bantu area.