THE MINES OF KURIDALA

The three mines - the Hampden at Kuridala, the Mount Elliott at Selwyn and the Mount Cobalt - lies south of Cloncurry and are rich in tangible and intangible links with the old mining days.

Selwyn was named after the Selwyn Ranges and was the town that served the Mount Elliott Mine. In 1906, a tramway was built from the Florence River and in 1907 the first hotel was built. With high prices of copper, the Mount Elliott company was formed. A smelter was started in 1908 and completed in August in 1910. The rail line from Cloncurry opened on December 15th, 1910. The mine was worked to a depth of 170 metres and to a width of 97 metres. The smelter was smelting 147 tons of copper a day but closed in 1920. In November1918, there was 4,000 tons of copper stacked ready for the world markets but the price collapsed and 650 men were sacked. At that stage, the town had a population of 1500 people.

At each of the three sites, there is a considerable amount of old machinery and plant lying around as well as many small items scattered over the ground. The township associated with each mine covered many hectares and it is in these areas that household and personal items could be found and which remind one of the privations under which those people lived. The most interesting places to visit are the two small cemeteries - one at Kuridala and the other at Selwyn. It is in these two resting-places of the dead that the visitor's mind conjures up the most vivid impressions of the living.

A few words about the road, times etc.:
An ordinary car should reach all localities except the Kuridala amethyst field, which requires a high clearance vehicle. The condition of the road varies depending on time of the year.

Distance and approximate times are as follows:
Mary Kathleen to Malbon - l00km - 1.5 hours.
Marlbon to Kuridala - 36km - 30 minutes.
Kuridala to Selwyn - 29km - 30 minutes.
Selwyn to Mt. Cobalt - 31km - 2 hours.

Head towards Cloncurry from the Mary Kathleen turnoff for 52.9km and take the Duchess turnoff. The railway line is crossed four times in the next 46.6km at which point you take the left-branch into Malbon.

Malbon was established at the junction of the Kuridala-Selwyn railway with the main line, but died when the mines closed. It struggled on with a pub, a petrol pump and a school, but the latter closed in the early seventies and the hotel was burnt down in 1980. The hotel was built about 1890.

Further on toward Kuridala, the old railway formation can be seen adjacent to the road. At 23.2km from the Cloncurry River, there is a right-hand turnoff, which leads to the Silver Phantom, and Young Australia mines, about 11km down the track. The Young Australia copper deposit was mined out by MIM in 9 months in about 1968 to overcome a shortfall in production at Mount Isa. Specimens of green malachite in a black, rich deposit of silver and specimens of Argentit (silver sulphide) can occasionally be found in the dense white mineral Barite (Barium sulphate).

There were two main mines at Kuridala, the Hampden-Cloncurry and the Hampden Consols worked to depth of 180 and 140 metres each. The Mount Elliott Company was buying the latter in 1912. Copper was first found at Kuridala in l884 but mining did not commence until 1897. High copper prices in 1905 - 1907 helped establish the field and another boost to the mines was received in 1910, when the railway was opened from Cloncurry. A four-month Typhoid epidemic occurred in 1911.

In 1913, the Consols mine was closed for some time after catching fire, probably by spontaneous combustion of the pyrite rich ore. Copper prices again surged between 1914 and 1916 and during this period Kuridala was a lively town of perhaps 2000 people. In December1918, a cyclone wrecked half the powerhouse and smelter.

But by 1918, the price of copper had slumped, ore grades at the mines were low and the Consols again caught fire as the smelting was suspended. The field was briefly rejuvenated the following year but the disastrous fall in metal prices in 1920, signalled the end. The smelter that had lit the night sky by the pouring of copper, had closed having produced 50,800 tons.

At the height of the boom, the town boasted 6 hotels, stores, drapers, fruiterer, butchers, bakers, timber merchant, a garage, four billiard rooms, two iceworks, three dance halls, picture theatre, and Chinese market gardens.

The town also had 4 churches, police station, banks, a school with up to 280 pupils and a modern hospital. With the rise of Mount Isa in 1923, the bakehouse, the hospital, iceworks, the Courthouse and picture theatre moved there.

The cemetery is a fascinating place to visit. Some idea of living conditions of the old days can be gained by noting the number of young to middle aged people buried there. Working conditions in the mines were obviously rough, as indicated by the number of miners accidentally killed.

For those interested in collecting Amethyst, the purple form of quartz, a fairly rough track of 7km (from the sharp bend in the main road) will take you to the diggings. If you mean business, be sure to take a crowbar or a hammer and a long spike because the amethyst veins have been followed by digging very narrow adits and pits in which a pick is quite useless. The amethyst at this locality is said to be good for cutting and polishing although colour is a bit on the pale side.

On leaving Kuridala and heading towards Selwyn, a left-hand turnoff 0.4km from the sharp bend will lead you into the workings of the Hampden Queen mine which, unfortunately had very little ore in its leasing. Another 2km along the Selwyn road will bring you level with the Kuridala rubbish dump.

For many years the town has remained abandoned with only the small cemetery and the skeleton structure of the once large smelter and slagheap. Today the smelter is being removed so the mine can be turned into an opencut.

Roc Doc

Courtesy of Greg Humphrey and the Mount Isa Family History Society.

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