Queenstown, located on the West Coast region of Tasmania, in the valley between Mount Lyell and Mount Owen, was once a
mining town. There area is also one of the wettest locations in Tasmania. Whilst Summers can be hot there is often snow on Mt Owen in December.
There are many wonderful historic buildings in the town including Evans store, Galley Museum, Empire Hotel, the railway sheds, Q Bank Gallery, the Post Office and Mount Lyell Anchorage cottages.
Peerapper and Tommeginne Aboriginal People
Tasmanian Aboriginal people were cut off from the mainland when the sea level flooded the Bass Strait about 12,000 years ago. For thousands of years, they were isolated from the rest of humanity until European contact.
The encounter between
the culturally and technologically different Aboriginal and European people resulted in misunderstandings and clashes. And ultimately, to the remaining Aboriginal people being relocated to a nearby island.
Accounts of the ceremonial and cultural life of the Tasmanian Aboriginal people are very limited, with the French expeditions in the 18th century being the most significant pre-contact reports. For example, early in 1802, the French Nicolas Baudin
exploration landed in Tasmania and spent time interacting with the Tasmanian Aboriginal people, and recording their language and culture.
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| Géographe and Naturaliste. The Baudin expedition of 1800 to 1803 was a French expedition to map the coast of New Holland (now Australia). |
François Péron, abroad the Geographe wrote that as the ship approached Tasmania, he had "touched the extreme boundary of the southern world". He was the first European to write about Tasmanian Aboriginal people, some reports being very clinical and others condescending. For example, "the inhabitant of these regions unites all the characters of man in an unsocial state, and is, in every sense of the word, the child of nature".
Undoubtedly influenced by Rousseau's fantasy of the Nobel Savage, Péron was shocked when one of the Frenchmen, Maurouard, was struck in the shoulder with a spear. Péron asserted the attack was a "perfidious and cowardly" display of brutality.
On
another day, the French offered presents to a group of Aboriginal women, who Péron thought seemed "often to criticise our appearance", and laughed "heartily at our expense".
And rather than being shy and demure like the French expected, one Aboriginal woman mimicked the "action and the tone" of the surgeon, Jérôme Bellefin's, singing. The woman then began to sing and dance herself. However, the French were shocked by her "attitude", which was close to "indecent".
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| Portrait de Bara-Ourou dans l'atlas du Voyage de découvertes aux terres australes, Bibliothèque nationale de France. Péron wrote a great deal about the Tasmanian Aboriginal people of the D'Entrecasteaux Channel, on south-eastern Tasmania. Péron also drafted a secret Mémoire sur les établissements anglais à la Nouvelle Hollande, which advocated a French conquest of Port Jackson with help from rebellious Irish convicts. |
During the 1960s, the geologist Keith D Corbett found abundant flaked stone around Queenstown indicating that the area was frequented by Aboriginal people.
Europeans
The first reported sighting of Tasmania by a European was on 24 November 1642, by the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman.
The first British
settlement of Tasmania was at Risdon Cove in 1803
The first convicts arrived in Tasmania in 1804.
The first payable alluvial gold deposits were reported in Tasmania in 1852.
The surveyor Charles Gould explored the Queenstown area in 1862 but found the location to be too remote and the terrain rugged.
Discovery of gold at "Iron Blow" at Mount Lyell in 1883.
1880s
The Irish prospector Cornelius Lynch found gold at Lynch Creek In 1883, 3.4 kilometres from today's Queenstown. News of the discovery spread, and hopeful miners travelled to the remote area surrounded by
impenetrable bush. Many travelled to the port of Strahan, then walked inland to the diggings.
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| Early view of Strahan with the wharf under construction, TAS, Trainiac |
1890s
The alluvial gold soon ran out and by 1891, attention turned to copper mining.
The Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company was established in 1893.
A shanty town named Penghana developed on the Queen River valley. In early 1895 a Post Office was built at the Queen River fork and crossing on the road to Strahan. The settlement was destroyed in 1896 and
the town was rebuilt further down the Queen River and renamed Queenstown (also known as Polkana and Queen Crossing).
James Robertson and J. B. Hunter opened a general store at Penghana.
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| Arrival of Governor at Queenstown Station, TAS, (1894), Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office Commons |
The first copper smelters were in operation by 1895.
Queenstown Oval, built in 1895, is infamous for its gravel playing surface.
After the Queenstown Post Office opened on 21 November 1896, the post office at Penghana closed.
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| Original Queenstown post office, TAS, next to courthouse in 1897 |
The Abt Railway linked the town to Strahan in 1897.
The Imperial Hotel, the first brick building was erected in 1898.
A water service to the main business area and residential portion of the town was commenced in 1896.
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| Smelting works, Mt Lyell, TAS, Zeehan and Dundas Herald (Tas. : 1890 - 1922), Saturday 27 March 1897 |
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| The Haulage at Mt Lyell at Queenstown Tas | Photo Beattie | Melbourne University | Related date - 1889 |
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| A group of men in front of a locomotive at Mount Lyell Mine in Queenstown (1889) | photographer unknown | University of Melbourne |
Overlooking Queenstown, the Federation mansion, Penghana, dates from 1898 and was once the home of Robert Sticht, the first mine manager of the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company. Sticht, an American metallurgist, was the developer of the first successful purely pyritic smelting in the world. Sticht was also instrumental in the establishment of the technical school in Queenstown.
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| Penghana, dates from 1898 and was once the home of Robert Sticht, the first mine manager of the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company, Queenstown, TAS |
The Mount Lyell Mining Co began operations in November 1892. However, in the following year, 29 March, it reformed as the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company. The railway officially opened in 1897 and was the only way to get copper from the mine at Queenstown to markets.
The railway utilised the Abt rack and pinion system for steep sections (using solid bars with vertical teeth machined into them).
The original
railway station that was built for the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company across from the western end of Orr Street and the Empire Hotel was without proper roof covering. But was covered in the 1920s.
The mountains and hills around Queenstown were once covered in forest, but mining and logging, sulphur and fire stripped the land bare, during the mining boom era.
1900s
In 1900 Queenstown
had a population of 5,051 and was Tasmania's third-largest town.
The business district centred around Orr and Sticht streets, with two major hotels, shops and public buildings.
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| Queenstown, TAS, View over the railway yard looking west, circa 1900. Taken from the water tower, Trainiac |
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| "Queenstown, Tasmania - early 1900s" by Aussie~mobs is marked with CC PDM 1.0 |
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| Empire Hotel-Queenstown, Tasmania, built by Parer & Higgins, with the first licensee Michael Parer 1901 |
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| Queenstown, TAS, the scene of recent disastrous bush firs, Australian Town and Country Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1870 - 1919), Saturday 23 February 1901 |
The town of Linda, which is about 10 minutes drive from Queenstown, was described in a local paper in 1900 as "a rapidly-grown
township, which now contains 600 people". Ore was taken from the North Mount Lyell mine to smelters at Crotty (now under the waters of Lake Burbury). Today Linda is a ghost town.
Queenstown Post Office at 32-34 Orr Street was built in 1902 as Post, Telegraph and Money Order Office.
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| The Stitt River Bridge, Mount Lyell Railway | photo Spurling Studio | TAHO Weekly Courier 1906 |
In April 1906, significant flooding occurred in Queenstown.
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| Queenstown TAS, floods, Leader (Melbourne, Vic. : 1862 - 1918, 1935), Saturday 5 May 1906 |
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| Furnace charging floor, Mt Lyell Mine, TAS, Punch (Melbourne, Vic. : 1900 - 1918; 1925), Tuesday 27 August 1907 |
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| Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company Limited, TAS, TAHO Weekly Courier, 1908 |
In 1911 the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company began to use electricity more extensively in its smelting operations. Construction
had commenced on the dam, which raised the original lake by 6 metres (20 ft). The water was originally conveyed from the dam through a 2.2 kilometre wooden stave pipeline.
The North Mount Lyell disaster
On 12 October 1912 at the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company operations, sometime between 11:15 and 11:30 am, the pump house on the 700-foot (210 m) level of the mine was reported on fire. 73 of the 170 miners working in the mine managed to escape that first day. However, those working in
remote stopes were trapped. And repeated attempts to enter the mine failed.
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| North Mt Lyell mine, from the north, TAS, Tasmanian Archives and State Library (Commons) |
Rescue equipment was transported by ship on the
SS Loongana, which crossed Bass Strait in record time. With the arrival of the rescue equipment, rescuers were able to enter the mine.
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| Mt Lyell Mine - funeral procession drawn by Mt Lyell train with photographers in foreground (1912), TAHO collection |
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| Maltese camp at Howards Plains, near Queenstown, Tasmania, 1912, Trainiac |
Rescue efforts lasted for four days, and 42 lives were lost. However, Albert Gadd, who had initially escaped the mine and returned to assist rescuers, died on February 1913 from carbon monoxide poisoning.
In 1914, a hydro-electric power station was built
in the area to provide electricity. Jobs were available at this time in the mines, smelters, machine shops, foundries, quarries, sawmill, railway, tramways, and hydro-electric power scheme.
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| Smelters, Queenstown, TAS, Tasmanian Archives and State Library (Commons) |
WWI
QUEENSTOWN' VOLUNTEERS.
| QUEENSTOWN, Sunday. — Additional advices have been received locally that some Queenstown lads have been wounded in the fighting at the Dardanelles.QUEENSTOWN VOLUNTEERS. (1915, May 17). Daily Telegraph (Launceston, Tas. : 1883 - 1928)
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| "Negative - Queenstown, Tasmania, circa 1915" is marked with CC PDM 1.0 |
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| Mt Lyell mine workers ready to depart Queenstown on the commute to the mine, headed by a large Krauss. J Robinson photo, 1919, Trainiac |
1920s
When Sticht, manager of the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Co. Ltd, since 1897, died in April 1922, Russell Murray was appointed his successor, however, at just over half the salary.
By 1925, the population had dropped to about half that recoded in 1901.
1930s
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Queenstown, TAS, Fire Brigade 1929 Chevrolet. Nankivell photo, Trainiac
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Before the first road from Hobart to Queenstown opened in 1932 most people arrived by sea.
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| 1. Orr Street, Queenstown, TAS 2. Queenstown Post Office, TAS, Weekly Times (Melbourne, Vic. : 1869 - 1954), Saturday 12 November 1932 |
The Paragon Theatre was bilt in 1933, in Art Deco style.
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| Smelters and worship, Mt. Lyell Mines and Smelters, TAS, Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 - 1946), Saturday 16 September 1933 |
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| Mount Lydl smellers and refining works. TAS, Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 - 1946), Saturday 16 September 1933 |
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| THE METROPOLE HALL, at Queenstown, which was erected in -1896, and is one of the oldest buildings in the town. Its demolition shortly will mean its replacement by a palatial theatre. Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 - 1954), Saturday 8 April 1933 |
The Queenstown aerodrome was constructed in the late 1930s.
The Gaiety Hall at 64 Orr Street was built as a general hall in 1932. By 1935 it transformed into the Gaiety Picture Theatre. Queenstown had two picture theatres in 1837.
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| On the West Coast of Tasmania. Portion of Queenstown, with Mount Owen in the DistanceSydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938), Wednesday 26 June 1935 |
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| WATER SWIRLING down Orr St., Queenstown, on Saturday morning, as a result of the Hunter St. main drain having been blocked by debris. Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 - 1954), Tuesday 13 December 1938 |
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| Queenstown cricketers, TAS, Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 - 1954), Friday 16 December 1938 |
1940s and WWII
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| West Coast men of the Second A.I.F. and returned soldiers marching past Queenstown Post Office, headed by tho combined Queenstown andGormanston banrd Mercury (Hobart, Tas. : 1860 - 1954), Friday 22 March 1940 |
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| Royal Mail van on Orr St, Queenstown. Post Office in Queenstown, Tasmania in the background. c1940 |
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| Queenstown street scene - Buildings, railway line, war memorial - Inscribed on back 'Mt. Lyell, fr Empire Hotel' - Barren landscape (1947), Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office |
1950s
In 1951 the State Government bought the Gaiety
Theatre for £6,000, and it was used for indoor sports.
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| Queenstown Central School, c1951, early Modernist architecture, Queenstown, TAS |
The Korean War |
| Private Alec ("Darky") Perini of Queenstown, TAS, Herald (Melbourne, Vic. : 1861 - 1954), Friday 27 April 1951 |
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| Cubs from Queenstown, TAS, Advocate (Burnie, Tas. : 1890 - 1954), Tuesday 30 October 1951 |
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| West Lyell open-cut mine, pure copper being loaded onto rail trucks, 1953, Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office |
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| Trade union executives at Queenstown quench their thirst, but with lemonade, not beer The"black ban on beer by Queenstown unionists because of the rise in price has proved a boon to shops selling milk shakes and soft drinks. Advocate (Burnie, Tas. : 1890 - 1954), Wednesday 8 December 1954 |
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| The Queenstown Technical High School girls' basketball team, TAS, Advocate (Burnie, Tas. : 1890 - 1954), Friday 16 July 1954 |
, relating the history of the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company, by Geoffrey Blainey, was published in 1954
1960s
The West Coast Wilderness Railway ceased operation on 10 August 1963.
Smelting ceased in 1969.
The development of the Prince Lyell copper fields caused population growth in the area.
1970s
The West Coast Miner, a fortnightly newspaper was published from December 1975 to 1978.
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| Queenstown, TAS, 1970s, Tasmanian Archives and State Library (Commons) |
1980s
The Paragon Theatre closed in 1985.
1990s
According to an article in
New Scientist, in 1993, the mining company wanted to clean up and regenerate the land around Queenstown which had became denuded and damaged from mining processes. "The people of Queenstown – with the backing of the state government – want to leave the surrounding hills just the way they are: barren, denuded and different." Read
here
2000s
The restored West Coast Wilderness Railway commenced operations on 27 December 2002 as the Abt Wilderness Railway. The new station is located south from the Driffield Street and Orr Streets intersection.
In 2003, restoration of the Paragon Theatre commenced and the building reopened as a 60-seater luxury cinema.
The Lynch Creek mine still operates today.
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| Restoration of former Comercial Bank Queenstown, TAS, 2017 |
Around Queenstown
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| The newer station (2000s) was built for the re-built railway, the West Coast Wilderness Railwa, Queenstown, TAS |
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Old bank building dating from 1898, Queenstown, TAS
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| Paragon Theatre, Queenstown TAS, built 1933 |
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| Queenstown Train Station, steamtrain, Tasmania, TAS. Queenstown is the Eastern terminus of the West Coast Wilderness Railway that runs up and over the mountain range to Strahan on Tasmania's West coast. |
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| Old Hunters Hotel, Queenstown, TAS |
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| Mine managers house, Penghana, at Queenstown Tasmania. Built in 1890, it housed all the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company Managers up until 1995 |
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| The Empire Hotel, Queenstown, TAS, |
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| The Empire Hotel on the corner of Orr and Driffield Streets, TAS, built by Miguel Parer 1901 |
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| The Queenstown Museum, Tasmania, is housed in the former Imperial Hotel built in 1897 |
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| Queenstown, TAS |
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| Main Street of Queenstown, Tasmania, with Mt Owen Covered in Snow |
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| The road to Queenstown, TAS |
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| Views around Queenstown, TAS |
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| Just 5kms from Queenstown in the small village of Gormanston and Horsetail Falls boardwalk, TAS |
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| The Gaiety Hall at 64 Orr Street, Queenstown, Tasmania, was built as a general hall in 1932 |
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| Iron blow - the former open cut mine at Linda Valle, Gormanston (near Queenstown), TAS |
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| The ghost town of Linda lies not far from Queenstown, TAS. In 1899 the town was developed to support the North Mount Lyell Mine. In 1903, the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company took over the mine and many residents moved to nearby Gormanston. The only surviving symbol of this once-booming town is the decaying Royal Hotel, which was finally abandoned along with the rest of the town in the 1950s |
Things To Do and Places To Go
Historic Walk: The Walkabout Queenstown is published by the Project Queenstown Committee.
Penghana- 32 The Esplanade Queenstown 7467 TAS
IRON BLOW LOOKOUT: Gold was discovered in the hills of the Linda Valley of Tasmania's west coast back in 1883 at a site called the Iron Blow. The Iron Blow Lookout allows viewers to see the open-cut mine. The deserted mining ghost towns of Gormanston and Linda are nearby.
The West Coast Wilderness Railway
Eric Thomas Galley Museum, corner of Driffield and Sticht Streets, Queenstown.
The Unconformity (formerly the Queenstown Heritage and Arts Festival) is held in Queenstown as a biennial event.
A short drive from Queenstown is the ghost town of Gormanston, Linda. Gold was discovered in the hills of the Linda Valley of Tasmania's west coast back in 1883 at a site called the Iron Blow. The Iron Blow Lookout allows viewers to see the open-cut mine. The deserted mining ghost towns of Gormanston and Linda are nearby.
Lake Margaret Power Station: Lake Margaret Rd, Lake Margaret TAS 7467
