This is the 6th in this power trail into Ravenswood.
Take care when handling this cache and wash your hands afterwards.
I want to take you on an adventure to Ravenswood to learn the fascinating history of this little gold town.
Ravenswood history.
From the 1850's to the First World War mining in Queensland was dominated by gold with major discoveries and consequential "rushes" in Clermont (1861), Gympie (1867) Ravenswood (1868) Charters Towers (1872).
In the early days mining at Ravenswood, as with many other gold fields, was restricted to panning the alluvial gold in the gullies of creeks. Later with establishment of reef mining it was necessary to set up mining facilities to extract gold. The Mable Mill, located on the northeren side of elphinstone creek was one of five mills on the Ravenswood Gold fields at the time.
By 1874 the town had a courthouse, a polive station,a post and telegraph office and a school. Shanties were replaced with sawn timber buildings and as single miners moved out families moved in.
The stability of the town was assisted in 1880's by the arrival of the Great Northeren Railway which passed close to the town in 1881 on its way from Townsville to Charters Towers.
A new generation of public buildings replaced the earlier ones built around the feilds and it was during this time of 1886, that the original Railway hotel was built, though the hotel had several publicans before the licence was transferred to John Moran in 1893.
By 1912 the mining industry in Ravenswood was on its last legs, profits had dropped substantially and conditions for miners were a constant issue. The great strike in Ravenswood of 1912/13 left a bitterly divided community, the mines continued to decline and the World War 1 broke out in 1914. Though the town had reached a population peak of nearly 5ooo people in 1903 it was rapidly decreasing. In 1917 New Ravenswood Co went into liquidation.
A small revival occured during the 1930's and early 1940's of lower grade ores, but Ravenswood never returned to the prosperity of the early 1900's and was not rebuilt.
Since 1970's numerous studies have been completed of the Ravenswood area ; in the1980's the whole town was listed by the Australian Heritage Comission and the National Trust of queensland.
This period also saw the commencment of open cut mining by Carpentaria Gold Pty Ltd and continues to this day.