• home
• about
• the towns
• tours
• orders
• contact

 

Extract:

Nearby Mount Cuthbert mine, employing about fifty people closed down for Christmas and a picnic race meeting was held at Kalkadoon. Teamsters and their families, gougers, stockmen from stations, Aborigines, men, women and piccaninnies, from miles around were camped on McKeon Creek.

The hotel was the focal point, its four bedrooms occupied by drunks with boots on, three or four to a bed. After a brief sleep one would stagger off back to the bar and another would take his place. People slept under the house, in the goat shed and fowl house, and under the trees lining the creek.

A race course was erected by marking the trees on the flat in a circle. Bookmakers operated and there were about a dozen horses running. The bookies accepted IOUs signed by the publican and these pieces of paper were known as 'shin plasters'. A two-up school started which would progress until a dispute arose which resulted in an all-in brawl with up to a dozen men fighting. These would be permitted to exhaust themselves, then the game would go on again until the next dispute.

These were rough colourful days of remote, hard conditions and no doubt the drunks reflected miserably the next day on their follies, for such was not the norm.

Deserted Towns Series

Cloncurry, Mt Isa & The Gulf Volume 8

 

Cloncurry, Mt Isa & The Gulf Volume 8 Volumes 1 , 2, 3 & 8 on sale now ISBN 978-0-9757750-8-0 87 pages. This hard cover book has maps, photos (colour and archival) town plans of smelters, mines and towns at Ballara, Bulonga, Butru, Dobbyn, Gunpowder, Hightville, Kalkadoon, Koolamarra, Kuridala, Marrabah, Mary Kathleen,

Mount Cuthbert, Selywn, Waggabundi, Bundock, Carnarvon, Chandos, Gilliat, Hulbert, Iffley, Maxwellton, Mount Emu, Nonda

Anecdotal stories, history, the areas smelter sites, Battle Mountain, Receiving Offices and Post Offices, Royal Flying Doctor, photos and maps capture life in the Cloncurry Mt Isa area in its hey day and show the present remains and legacy.

Below are a few of the photos found in this book – Cloncurry-Mount Isa-Gulf, North Queensland Deserted Towns.

Camel tea brining in supplies circa 1910	Cloncurry, Dobbyn Hotel, 1920's	The Gulf Carnarvon - The customs-house 1871
Ore team coming into Hampden smelters alongside the rail July 1912	Marrabah, Market garden at Marrabah	Kuridala, Railway hotel circa-1914
Dobbyn mine headframe which initially came from Charters Towers	Mount Cuthbert Remains
	Marrabah Hotel	Mrs Jean Powell in the engine shed at Mount Cuthbert
Mount Cuthbert Remains	Mount Cuthbert Remains	Kuridala remains
Selwyn remains	Kuridala remains	Selwyn remains

Current Books on Sale:         (North Queensland Deserted Towns)
	Angor to Zillmanton
	Cooktown -Palmer - Volume I
	Torres Strait - Cape York - Volume 2
	Chillagoe-Hodgkinson - Volume 3
	Cloncurry, Mt Isa - Gulf - Volume 8

 

Deserted Mining Towns and Camps in North Queensland, Australia by Colin Hooper
* Angor to Zillmanton * Cooktown - Palmer Vol.1 - * Torres Strait - Cape York - Vol 2 -
* Chillagoe - Hodgkinson - Vol 3 - * Cloncurry, Mt Isa Gulf - Vol 8
P O Box 5884, Townsville, Q4810 .. Ph: 07 4724 1666.. Email: sales@desertedtownsatoz.com

home | about the book | the towns | tours | orders | contact

Designed/Managed
nqwebdesign