When Gary Brown was a younger man, an elephant ambled into the Pine Creek Hotel and walked out the other side.

Since then he has seen all kinds of strange and wonderful things, including his small outback town booming on the back of unprecedented demand for gold and iron ore over the past decade.

About 300 kilometres south of Darwin and far from the boardrooms of the big miners, the historical mining town of Pine Creek has been hit hard by a sudden and steep decline in the price of iron ore.

The NT Country Hour reported this week that the Frances Creek mine had stopped production months after announcing this intention.

By coincidence, a day earlier the iron ore spot price reached a five-year low.

The mine's closure follows two other mine shutdowns in the NT and marks the suspension of all iron ore mining in the Territory.

Frances Creek employed about 300 people in a town of 600 and since the mine went into voluntary administration last year sacked workers have been trickling out.

It would seem that for most places such a loss would be a knockout blow.

But Mr Brown said he had seen it all before.

"It's sad saying goodbye," says Alice Crowe-Wright, who has seen many of her friends leave. ( ABC News: James Purtill )

"The worst downturn I went through would have been Pine Creek Goldfields when they closed down in 1995," he said.

"We were a bit worried then. We thought we'd lose teachers from the school and police would be moving out of town."

The long-term resident, who was also marking his 60th birthday at the hotel, moved to Pine Creek from New South Wales 30 years ago to work on the mines.

Pine Creek resident Theresa Bandison, who was born in the town, says she has seen it recover from downturns before. ( ABC News: James Purtill )

He moved to a town in the flush of a gold boom led by the new Pine Creek Goldfields open cut mine.

The town had long ridden the cycle of mining booms and busts - when gold was discovered there in 1871, Chinese diggers poured into the Northern Territory's goldfields.

Ten years after Mr Brown came to town, the mine went bust and the elephant walked through the bar.

"We had a circus in town at the time," he said.

"I was sitting here having a beer and this little baby elephant starts walking into the pub.

"I hadn't had that many. We were freaked out, we didn't know what to do.

"We were just hoping it wasn't going to stand on us."

It did not, but 20 years later again the plunging price of iron ore to China has squashed the local iron ore industry.

As for Pine Creek, the composure of its townsfolk could be misleading - generally the ones who remained would be long-term residents less exposed to the downturn rather than younger miners forced elsewhere.

Pulling pints behind the bar of the Pine Creek Hotel, Alice Crowe-Wright said she had seen many good friends leave in the last 10 months.

"It's sad saying goodbye," she said. "But that's the way small towns work."

These days Mr Brown worked at the local tavern and caravan park.

"I've been here that long I love the place," he said.

"I don't think the town will go bad because it's always been just a little town," former Pine Creek resident Sue Hudson says. ( ABC News: James Purtill )

'The town was flowing. Everybody was happy'

Australia's resources-led economic boom came to Pine Creek in 2005 with a town hall-style meeting of miners and locals, according to former resident, Sue Hudson.

"We had people form the mines that come in tell you what's going to happen," she said.

"We're going to be employing the locals. We're putting this much more into the economy. We listened to what they had to say.

People leaving Pine Creek have been hanging their boots from the Boot Tree. ( ABC News: James Purtill )

"At this stage we were getting very hopeful there was going to be lots of businesses here - mechanics, accommodation, meals, laundrettes.

"Everything gets affected in that way."

She and her husband had moved to Pine Creek the previous year to manage the service station.

The first miners to visit were gold miners, she said.

"When we came here we didn't know there would be a gold mine re-emerging," she said.

"Then lo and behold 18-20 months later they did start the gold mine operation again."

The population of Pine Creek has declined since 1966 and the days of the Pine Creek Races. ( Supplied: National Archives of Australia )

"It was very good, everybody was positive, everybody was happy.

"The town was flowing.

"And then it was after we left here that first gold mine closed up. Then everyone gets sad again."

In the last two years the price of gold has tumbled and several gold mining operations in the NT have stopped.

Gold was still being mined 15 kilometres up the road from Pine Creek, at Cosmo Deeps, but analysts have said the gold price could fall further.

In 2013, the price of gold fell about 30 per cent.

In 2014, the price of iron ore fell about 40 per cent.

She said locals were now concentrating on another river of gold: tourists on the Stuart Highway.

"Overall when the tourists come again people are going to be happy they'll see the town. People driving in and out in their caravans.

"It's all good. I think people are optimistic. I don't think the town will go bad because it's always been just a little town.

"It's had mines one day and not the next, that's how it's been."

'I've been here 60 years. I won't move'

Pine Creek may be used to weathering the bad times and building itself up again in the good, but the long-term trend has been downwards.

The railway line between Darwin and Pine Creek built in 1889 at enormous expense closed in 1976.

The railway station and rolling stock have become outdoor museum exhibits.

In the laundromat a notice encouraged anyone leaving town to hang their boots from "the boot tree" on the outskirts of town at the entrance to a mining camp.

Perhaps its most well-known resident, Eddie Ah Toy, who was born in Pine Creek to a family that ran the old bakery and the general store, has watched his children move to Darwin.

He said the downturn was going to affect the town.

"The town is going to feel it a lot," he said.

"When you lose 300 people out of maybe 550, that's about half the population," he said.

"It's going to have a big impact.

"I've been here 60 years. I won't move out of Pine Creek."