The Chillagoe smelters is a heritage-listed refinery at Chillagoe-Mungana Caves National Park, Mareeba Mining District, Chillagoe, Shire of Mareeba, Queensland, Australia. It operated in the early 1900s. It is also known as Chillagoe State Smelters. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992.
In its heyday the Chillagoe Smelters were the centre of a thriving mining industry that brought wealth and development to the Chillagoe area. By June 1901, when the railway was completed, Chillagoe was a flourishing town. The railway enabled equipment for the large, innovative Chillagoe Smelters to become operative by September 1901. The Chillagoe Railway & Mining Company equipped its work sites with the most up-to-date machinery and the surrounding mines at Mungana, Zillmanton and Redcap worked on a large scale. At times, the mines, railway and smelter provided employment for up to 1,000 workers.
Chillagoe Smelter operated until 1943 and in its 40 odd year lifetime treated of ore, yielded of copper, of lead, of silver and of gold. By 1943, other smelters were built closer to the then major ore producing areas such as Mount Isa. Easy access to these areas outweighed the economic usefulness of the state run Chillagoe Smelter. In 1950, the buildings and equipment were auctioned. Today the site is managed by Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service.
History
The first explorer in the Chillagoe region was James Venture Mulligan on his 1874 exploration trip. Then William Atherton took up pastoral leases in 1887 and built a timber homestead on the bank of Chillagoe Creek.
John Moffat sent the first prospecting party into the area in mid 1887 and they pegged many surface shows. Mining on a serious scale began in the district in 1892 at Muldiva, where Moffat's company commenced silver production. Unfortunately a few months before the silver price crashed and the newly built smelter only operated for eighteen months. Moffat erected small exploratory smelters at Calcifer in 1894 and at Girofla (Mungana) in 1896.
In 1896, with mining developments at Mount Lyell (Tasmania) and Kalgoorlie (Western Australia) causing great interest, Moffat sought to raise large scale capital to develop the Chillagoe field. In Melbourne, the heartland of Australian mining investment, he interested a syndicate of capitalists, including James Smith Reid, in a scheme to purchase his leases, to build smelting works and to construct a private railway more than from the government railhead at Mareeba to the mines and smelter. A company called Chillagoe Proprietary Limited was formed in Melbourne and placed its proposal before the Queensland Government. Before the end of 1897, the Mareeba to Chillagoe Railway Act authorised the company to carry out its plans and granted it generous concessions.
Construction on the smelter site commenced in mid 1900 while the railway work was underway, and proceeded slowly, as all materials had to be carried overland from the advancing railhead which reached Chillagoe in August 1901.
In mid 1900 the Chillagoe Company had operating: three boilers, three steam engines , one active reduction works, two pumps, of tramway, of water mains, two brick machines, one clay mill, two saw benches, one traction engine, and a dam constructed, valued at a total of . Walkers of Maryborough contracted for the iron frames of the furnaces and Jack and Newell were agents for a large amount of the smaller material for the construction of the smelters. The proposed smelting plant being erected under the supervision of J. M. Higgins (former metallurgist of Dry Creek Works, South Australia) and R. Shepherd (the construction engineer who had supervised the erection of the Mount Lyell smelters) was to treat of ore per day and comprise six furnaces. By 1901 there were five boilers, ten steam engines , nine pumps, two rock breakers, one brick machine, six furnaces, four blowers, two lathes, three drilling machines, one traction engine, several small machines, one roller, and two grinders, valued at a total of .
Six furnaces were blown in on 13 October 1902, but did not run freely, treating only of ore for of gold, of copper, of silver, valued at , and the works were shut down for reconstruction of the company. A major problem was the lack of ore which was only being obtained from Redcap and Calcifer. The company had hoped to receive ore from Mount Garnet also. Managers changed frequently, Frederick Back in 1903 and Thomas James Greenway in 1904. In the early years of operations the Chillagoe smelter treated lead ore from Girofla mine and Torpy's Crooked Creek silver lead mine, producing of lead and of silver in 1904. The converters were blown in on 21 January 1905.