Gympie goldfields, 1909

Gympie, QLD
Australia
1 January 1909
21 October 2010
21 October 2010

Location

Gympie, QLD
Australia
Queensland Geological Survey

Collection of the State Library of New South Wales

Topographical map of Gympie and environs, Queensland Geological Survey, 1909. Illustrating report on Gympie Goldfield by B Dunstan, Government Geologist, sheets 9 and 10. Collection of the State Library of New South Wales

The Geological Survey of Queensland commenced in 1868 at the suggestion of Richard Daintree. Daintree, a geologist and photographer from Huntingdonshire in England, had arrived in Queensland in 1864, having spent time on the gold fields of Victoria. Daintree travelled through the north of the state finding several indications of gold, copper and coal and his prospecting work in North Queensland is recognised as a catalyst in the early development of gold in that area.

Mount Morgan, 1890-93. Photographs (Richardson Collection), Fryer Library, University of Queensland Collection.                 

Copyright © Fryer Library, University of Queensland Collection

Public art installation, ‘A stencil on a post-industrial landscape: Mt Morgan Goldmine 1882-1990’.

Photograph Copyright © Luke Keogh, 2009

Scattered across the tropical north of Queensland are hundreds of dead towns. Called into being by mining, they were abandoned when the minerals ran out or proved to be unprofitable.

Passengers boarding a De Havilland Dragon aircraft at Cracow. The gold mining town of Cracow, two days journey by road from Rockhampton, was established in the 1930s. Ron Adair’s Aircrafts Pty Ltd commenced flights to the town on 29 December 1930, in a way not dissimilar to today’s fly-in/fly-out services to the mining industry. From February 1934 Aircrafts Pty Ltd was one of a small number of aviation organisations subsidised by the Commonwealth through a Special Grant because of their services to the community.

Collection of John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland

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