Ravenswood Mining Landscape and Chinese Settlement Area is a heritage-listed former mining town and archaeological site on the reserve bounded by School Street, Cemetery Road, Railway Street and Burdekin Falls Dam Road, Ravenswood, Charters Towers Region, Queensland, Australia. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 14 October 2016.
History
The Ravenswood Mining Landscape and Chinese Settlement Area is situated south of Elphinstone Creek and to the west of School Street and Kerr Street, in the town of Ravenswood, about south of Townsville and east of Charters Towers. The Ravenswood goldfield was the fifth largest producer of gold in Queensland during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its main mining periods, prior to modern open cut operations (1987 onwards), were: alluvial gold and shallow reef mining (1868-1872); attempts to extract gold from sulphide ores below the water table (); the New Ravenswood Company era (1899-1917); and small scale mining and re-treatment of old mullock heaps and tailings dumps (1919-1960s). In 2016 the Ravenswood Mining Landscape and Chinese Settlement Area contains surface structures from eight mines: the Grand Junction, Little Grand Junction, Sunset No.1 and Sunset No.2, Deep, General Grant, Duke of Edinburgh, and Grant and Sunset Extended mines, as well as the mill associated with the Deep mine, and the Mabel Mill tailings treatment plant (most structures dating from the New Ravenswood Company era). It also includes remnants of two treatment plants (Partridge and Ralston's Mill, and Judge's Mill) from the 1930s; and the Chinese settlement area (1870s to the early 20th century, covering the first three mining periods at Ravenswood).
The place contains important surviving evidence of: ore extraction (from underground shafts) and metallurgical extraction (separation of gold from the ore) conducted on and near the Ravenswood goldfield's most productive reefs during the boom period of the town's prosperity (1900-1908); later attempts to re-treat the mullock heaps and tailings dumps from these mines; and Ravenswood's early Chinese community, which made an important contribution to the viability of the isolated settlement and was located along Deighton Street and Elphinstone Creek. The Ravenswood Mining Landscape and Chinese Settlement Area also has the potential to reveal evidence of early alluvial and shallow reef mining, as well as domestic living arrangements on the Ravenswood goldfield. It is an evocative reminder of the precarious and short-lived nature of north Queensland's mining booms, and has a special association with Archibald Lawrence Wilson, who established the New Ravenswood Company and improved both ore and metallurgical extraction processes on the goldfield.
Settlement and mining in north Queensland
European settlement of the Kennedy Land District in north Queensland commenced with the founding of Bowen in 1861, and the spread of pastoralists through the hinterland. Pastoral stations were established up the valley of the Burdekin River, including "Ravenswood" and "Merri Merriwa". Townsville and Cardwell were both established north of Bowen in 1864.
However, mining, not pastoralism, proved to be the main catalyst for European settlement of north Queensland. In 1865 the founders of Townsville offered a reward for the discovery of a payable goldfield, and gold rushes occurred in the region from 1866. The first rush occurred at the Star River (inland from Townsville) in 1866. This was followed by a rush to the Cape River (near Pentland, southwest of Charters Towers) in 1867. Copper was also found on the Einasleigh River and at Cloncurry in the mid-1860s. Mining employed 19.8% of the north Queensland population in 1868, and 50% by 1876, before dropping to 15% in 1911. Although gold mining attracted people to north Queensland, alluvial finds of gold usually led to temporary townships, whereas underground reef mining held the promise of more stable and permanent settlements.
