Chillagoe and a bit of a History Lesson

How many photos can you take of a historical smelter site?

  123, what the heck 123! 

I think I got carried away. 

I usually do but is my insurance against the fact that I might not see that place again.

Good thing for you that you don't have to look at all 123, just a select few (still too many).

First stop in Chillagoe was the information center to find out about the caves in the area. You can even do self guided ones.

Next stop was the smelters.

It wasn't far from town. Actually signage was really good making everything easy to find.

Three chimneys can be seen, very easily, among the remains. They are the roaster chimney at the front, the powerhouse chimney in the middle and up on the hill there is the main chimney.

The roaster chimney

 So now for a bit of a history lesson. I took the information from the signs around the area which I have to admit I didn't actually read at the time. 

Actually, I think Mr Sparky (Mr Let's Move It We Are Taking Too Long) spent more time looking at these than me and found the statistics on signs interesting like that 1901 and 1943 the Chillagoe smelters treated 1 250 000 tonnes of ore (copper, lead, silver and gold). I think maybe it was because he used to work at the Townsville copper refinery. He does share my interest in history but you would never find his head in a book to find it out. This out and about way is more his style and I have to say way more fun than any history class.

Mining in North Queensland started during the 1870s but the Chillagoe area was left pretty much alone until the 1880s when copper, silver, lead, zinc and gold were discovered. There were already tin mines at Herberton and Irvinebank and had been gold rushes at the Palmer River and Hodgkinson.

John Moffat who was a tin mining magnate bought leases in the Chillagoe area and small mines and smelters popped up all over the place.

 William Atherton established a pastoral lease, Chillagoe Station, to provide beef to the area.

The only transport for the ore, machinery and supplies on extremely rough terrain was by bullock and horse teams as well as camel trains. 

Looking around I could see how hard the landscape was and couldn't even begin to imagine the hard work and time it would have taken to do anything.

The powerhouse chimney

In the late 1890s John Moffat managed to get the investment needed for a large scale mining development on the Chillagoe copper field. They were able to raise the money to buy up mining leases, build a smelter and construct a private railway from Mareeba to Chillagoe, connecting Chillagoe to the port of Cairns. 

Now that would have made transport a fair bit easier. It is a shame that transport system has been left to decay in the dust rather than being used.

The main chimney - 34m tall & 2.7m internal diameter at the base

When the rail was completed and the smelter opened in 1901, John Moffat and entrepreneur James Reid had spent over half a million pounds on construction. This made it the largest mining development in Queensland at the time.

Chillagoe smelters employed over 1000 people at their peak and by 1908 Chillagoe had a population of over 1500 people and was home to 10 pubs. I am glad they got the important information in there. 10 pubs, that is 150 people per pub. Pretty good, hey?

The smelter closed in 1914 at the outbreak of WW1. There was a shortage of ore and many complex minerals. Also the project had been over capitalised. 

People don't learn from history, do they, as over capitalisation (spending more money than what the value can ever be) happens all the time.

The smelters remained closed during the war and ownership was transferred to the Queensland Government. They were closed again in 1927 but were opened again in 1929 and used as part of the welfare policy to create jobs in depressed mining districts. They smelters then operated until 1943. By then other smelters had been built closer to other ore producing areas such as Mount Isa and most of the buildings and equipment from Chillagoe were sent to other mines or sold off in 1952.

The Chillagoe Smelters never made a profit in their working life but they did create thousands of jobs and had a significant effect on the development of heavy industry in north Queensland along with the development of the transport system. 

Now days there are just a small zinc mine, some marble quarries and around 200 people along with between 600 and 1000 caves in the area. Oh and I believe just 1 pub.

I do like seeing history in the flesh but it also makes me feel a bit sad for the loss of what has been. It isn't any more obvious than out here the boom and bust part of life. What were once booming towns are now dots on the map or wiped from the map entirely. It is a huge reminder that mining won't be there forever and neither will the people.

It is a tough land, one filled with challenges and the stories of those who have taken it on.

Oh, what a reminder that this often harsh yet beautiful land has its fingers well and truly wrapped around my heart. Now all I want to do is head west again, argh.

A photo from one of the information boards.