Charters Towers

Crushing works at Enterprise Mill, 1877

Mosman Street, ~1888

Charters Towers mining settlement circa 1890

The town was founded in the 1870s when gold was discovered by chance at Towers Hill on Christmas Eve 1871 by 12-year-old Aboriginal boy, Jupiter Mosman. Jupiter was with a small group of prospectors including Hugh Mosman, James Fraser and George Clarke. Their horses bolted after a flash of lightning. While he was searching Jupiter found both the horses and a nugget of gold in a creek at the base of Towers Hill.[3] Charters originated from the Gold Commissioner, W.S.E.M. Charters.[4] A total of ten major gold reefs were eventually mined.[3]

Such were the boom years, between 1872 and 1899, that Charters Towers hosted its own stock exchange. The Great Northern railway between Charters Towers and the coastal port of Townsville was completed in December 1882.[4] During this period, the population was approximately 30,000, making Charters Towers Queensland's largest city outside of Brisbane. The city was also affectionately known as 'The World',[4] as it was said that anything one might desire could be had in the 'Towers', leaving no reason to travel elsewhere.

The Borough of Charters Towers was proclaimed on 21 June 1877 under the Municipal Institutions Act 1864 with John McDonald being elected the town's first mayor.[4][5][6] The local government area would later be known as Town of Charters Towers and City of Charters Towers, before being absorbed into the Charters Towers Region.

Charters Towers Post Office opened on 17 May 1872.[7]

Pithead, ~1891

A 20 head of stamps mill began ore crushing operations on 16 July 1872. The Venus Battery continued to be used by small mine in the region until 1971.[8] The unique site remains intact today, together with a cyanide treatment plant and assay office.

Architectural plans for the Charters Towers District Hospital

Hospital, circa 1888

On Sunday 10 August 1884, the new Charters Towers District Hospital opened.[9]

Funeral cortege passing the Waverley Hotel, ca. 1906

By 1917 gold mining became uneconomic.[8] During World War I labour was hard to find, and as the mines drove deeper, ventilation and water problems arose. This production decline was similar across Australian gold mines, with rising costs and a fixed gold price eroding profitability. The town entered a long period of relative stagnation and little further development has occurred since.

The Charters Towers gold field produced over 200 tonnes (6.6 million troy ounces) of gold from 1871–1917.[3] The gold is concentrated into veins and was Australia's richest major field with an average grade of 34 grams per tonne. The grade was almost double that of Victorian mines and almost 75% higher than the grades of Western Australian (Kalgoorlie) gold fields of that time.[3]

Day Dawn Block and Wyndham Mines, 1897

Mining operations, ~1897

Brilliant and St. George Mill and works, 1904

Charters Towers has a number of heritage-listed sites, including:

• Anne Street: Church of Christ[10]
• Bridge Street: Boer War Veterans Memorial Kiosk and Lissner Park[11]
• Columbia, Toll: Bore Sight Range and Compass Swinging Platform[12]
• 25 Deane Street: Aldborough[13]
• Enterprise Road, Queenton: Signals, Crane and Subway, Charters Towers Railway Station[14]
• 17 Gill Street: Charters Towers Post Office[15]
• 18 Gill Street: Pollard's Store (now Target)[16]
• 34–36 Gill Street: Bank of New South Wales[17]
• 49 Gill Street: Charters Towers Police Station[18]
• 134 Gill Street: St Columba's Church Bell Tower[19]
• 157 Gill Street: Ambulance Building[20]
• 39–47 High Street: Charters Towers Central State School[21]
• 24 – 26 Hodgkinson Street: School of Mines[22]
• 28 Hodgkinson Street: Charters Towers Courthouse[23]
• 63 Hodgkinson Street: Ay Ot Lookout[24]
• 57 – 59 King Street, Richmond Hill: Thornburgh House[25]
• MacDonald Street, Millchester: Venus State Battery[26]
• Mosman Street: Bartlam's Store (now Zara Clark Museum)[27]
• 65 Mosman Street: ED Miles Mining Exchange[28]
• 76 Mosman Street: Charters Towers Stock Exchange Arcade[29]
• 86 Mosman Street: Australian Bank of Commerce[30]
• 90 Mosman Street: Lyall's Jewellery Shop[31]
• Paull Street: Day Dawn mine remains[32]
• 2–6 Paull Street: Pfeiffer House[33]
• 20 Ryan Street: Charters Towers Masonic Lodge[34]
• 36 Ryan Street: Civic Club[35]
• Towers Hill: Mining works on Towers Hill[36]

Some of Charters Towers's heritage is spread across the town:

• Alabama, Millchester, Queenton, Towers Hill: Charters Towers mine shafts[37]
• Charters Towers City, Millchester, Queenton, Richmond Hill: Stone kerbing, channels and footbridges of Charters Towers[38]

Target Country Charters Towers

Exterior Target Country Charters Towers, North Queensland

Interior Target Country Charters Towers, North Queensland

At 18 Gill Street the heritage listed former Pollard's department store is now most likely the only Target or Target Country store which features leadlight windows.

According to the 2016 census of Population, there were 8,120 people in Charters Towers.

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people made up 10.9% of the population.
• 83.3% of people were born in Australia. The next most common countries of birth were New Zealand 1.5% and England 1.3%.
• 87.6% of people spoke only English at home.
• The most common responses for religion were No Religion 24.4%, Catholic 23.5% and Anglican 18.0%.[1]

Charters Towers has a hot semi-arid climate (Köppen climate classification: BSh), with distinct seasons. Summers are hot and often rainy, whereas winters are mild and dry with low humidity.

Charters Towers township is mildly elevated at 300 metres above sea-level, but this has a noticeable effect, with lower humidity and bigger temperature variations than nearby Townsville.[39] Charters Towers obtains its water supply from the nearby Burdekin River.

The urban area of the town of Charters Towers includes its suburbs: Charters Towers City (the centre of the city); Richmond Hill, Toll and Columbia to the north, Queenton to the east, Grand Secret and Alabama Hill to the west, and Towers Hill, Mosman Park and Millchester to the south.[40]

Charters Towers is a regional centre for the mining industry, the beef industry and education, specifically boarding schools catering for remote rural families.

Education

Target Discount department store

Township, ~1906

Gill Street, ~1914

Former Municipal Library

Charters Towers has four secondary schools: Columba Catholic College (opened in 1998);[44] Blackheath and Thornburgh College (opened in 1919);[44] All Souls St Gabriels School (opened in 1920);[44] and Charters Towers State High School (opened in 1912).[44] The nearest university is the James Cook University, in Townsville. Charters Towers is well known as a boarding school town, with families from western Queensland, the Northern Territory, Western Australia and the Torres Strait Islands sending their children to school in the district, over the larger cities in the area such as Townsville and Cairns. The Alliance of Charters Towers State Schools (ACTSS) represents the five State schools in the area that are funded by the Queensland Government – Charters Towers Central State School (opened in 1875),[44] Millchester State School (opened in 1874),[44] Richmond Hill State School (opened in 1895),[44] Charters Towers School of Distance Education (opened in 1987)[44] and Charters Towers State High School.

A number of other state schools within the city and nearby vicinity, which mostly commenced during the mining boom years have also existed. These included Queenton State School (1890–1933), Mt. Leyshon State School (1890 – c.1940), King's Gully State School (1911–1932), The Broughton State School (1905–?), Macrossan State School (1884–19??), Rishton State School (1884–1891), Liontown State School (1905 – c. 1921), Black Jack State School (1887–1948), Pumping Station State School (1898–1936), and Sellheim State School (1889–1939).

The Charters Towers Regional Council operates the Charters Towers Excelsior Library in Charters Towers at 130 Gill Street.[45]

The Charters Towers branch of the Queensland Country Women's Association meets at the Jane Black Memorial Hall at 80 Mossman Street.[46] Jane Black of Pajingo Station was a pioneer of the Charters Towers branch but also one of the founders of the Country Women's Association in Queensland as a whole. The hall was officially opened on Thursday 22 July 1954.[47][48]

The Northern Miner newspaper (not to be confused with The Northern Miner, a mining publication in Canada) was first published in August 1872, just eight months after the discovery of gold.[49] Such was its strength in those gold mining days of the late 1880s that The Northern Miner installed a then revolutionary linotype slug casting machine before Brisbane's The Courier Mail. It was the only newspaper (of five published during the boom gold years) that survives today.[49] In 2000, The Northern Miner was linked for the first time to the North Queensland Newspaper Company and therefore News Limited's electronic layout system and website.

The Charters Towers E-Village launched in 2011 and provides a location where people can connect with the Charters Towers community. The E-Village is the creation of local resident, Bryan West, following his frustration at not being able to find a suitable date for a Kindergarten working bee. It includes a community calendar, member pages for all Charters Towers organisations, a database of services available within and to the community, classifieds, daily weather, and an online shop. It has a daily news service that originates and aggregates content from and relevant to the Charters Towers community, which is delivered through a Facebook page and free daily newsletter. Because it has a lower than national proportion of households with reliable internet access, the Charters Towers E-Village installed a free public wireless internet service in the main street of the town, in conjunction with local businesses. Since its inception in 2011, it has grown to receive about 1,500 visits each day. The E-village derives its income from related web-services, with any profits being returned to the Charters Towers community.[50]

The Evening Telegraph was a daily newspaper published between 1901 and 1921.

The Charters Towers Goldfield Ashes has been an amateur cricket carnival conducted over the long week-end in January since 1948 by the Charters Towers Cricket Association Incorporated (CTCA), and it is now the largest in the southern hemisphere.[51] Players ranging from regional and the country to play. Numbers in recent years have reached just shy of 200 teams. The event is of massive benefit for the town bringing in business for the entire region, especially the town's pubs and clubs. While the higher grades take it very seriously with awards and prizes given, the lower grades take to a more social view. Games involving drinking penalties and costume wearing are all part of the antics. In 2010, more teams were involved than ever. However, the competition did not reach the magic two hundred team only because of the lack of fields in the region. Many of the fields are concrete pitches on the properties of local families in the region.

During World War II, Charters Towers was the location of RAAF No.9 Inland Aircraft Fuel Depot (IAFD), completed in 1942 and closed on 29 August 1944. Usually consisting of 4 tanks, 31 fuel depots were built across Australia for the storage and supply of aircraft fuel for the RAAF and the US Army Air Forces at a total cost of £900,000 ($1,800,000).[52]

A Rugby league team from Charters Towers (1915)

For mayors of Charters Towers, see City of Charters Towers#Mayors.

• Margaret Theadora Allan (1889–1968), community worker[53]
• Cecil Aynsley, member of the Queensland rugby league team of the century
• Bruce Barry (1934–2017), Australian actor and singer, grew up in the town[54]
• Daisy Bates, Irish-Australian journalist and welfare worker, known for her work with indigenous Australians
• Adam Cook, Australian rugby league player
• Anderson Dawson, politician, 14th Premier of Queensland for one week, (1–7 December 1899), first Labor premier in Australia
• Dave Evans, first lead singer of AC/DC from 1973 to 1974
• William Edward Harney, Australian writer
• Wilhelm Iwan (1871–1958), author, historian, and theologian (lived in Charters Towers for nine years and wrote a book describing his experiences)
• Bob Katter, Australian politician
• Lieutenant Colonel Tom Mills MC & Bar (1908–1978), was born in Charters Towers
• Breaker Morant, Australian drover, horseman and soldier, spent some years in Charters Towers
• Hugh Mosman, pioneered gold mining in Charters Towers
• Jupiter Mosman, found the first gold in Charters Towers
• Major Hugh Quinn (1888–1915), Australian Soldier, namesake of Quinn's Post, frontline position ANZAC, Gallipoli[55]
• Andrew Symonds, Australian Test cricketer, spent much of his early childhood in Charters Towers
• Edward Vivian Timms (1895–1960), novelist and scriptwriter[56]

• Charters Towers Courthouse
• Charters Towers Excelsior Library

• Media related to Charters Towers at Wikimedia Commons
• Charters Towers travel guide from Wikivoyage
• University of Queensland: Queensland Places: Charters Towers
• Charters Towers City Council website