SOUVENIR-CHARTERS TOWERS, 1872 TO JULY,
1950
Page 5
CHARTERS TOWERS
The Premier Queensland Goldfield
EARLY History
THIS goldfield town was built on a gently inclined plane, down which
the chief street, Mosman Street, descends, junctioning with Gill
Street the other main thoroughfare-at about three parts down which
latter,
after rising gently, goes to the railway station at Queenton, a mile
distant. All I around on every side is a wide plain, barren or fruitful
according to the time of year or the period that has elapsed since the
last drought. There is
a Towers Hill behind the town some 200 feet high, that is the only
break on the horizon. There are hills in
the distance towering up in the haze that 78 years ago helped to
witness the Baptism of the town known as Charters Towers, or Tors,
which latter signifies
mountains in old Cornwall lingo; the first name, Charters. being that
.of the Warden of the district, who proclaimed the new goldfield in
August, 1872. The semi-desert waste of that day is now a thriving
well-built town of some 13,000 people, containing buildings that many
English towns of double the population, and a hundred times as old, do
not possess. The field is 600 miles square, and includes Ravenswood,
that first waxed and then waned before Charters Towers
began to develop. The revenue collections of 1887,were
£17,751 from the Charters Towers and Cape gold fields, which
included the issue of 2,261 miners rights, the sum total being by far
the largest on record. The value of the machinery on the field at the
close of that year was £176,350, an increase of £61,450 on
the value of the previous year. The mining companies at the end of 1887
showed a total of 5,126,180 shares issued, or about two millions in
excess of 1886,
the capital paid up being two and a quarter millions in that year as
against four and a third millions in 1887. How Ravenswood fell behind
in the race with its younger rival is seen in the fact that in five
years ending 1877 the Towers had a total gold output worth
£600,000, as against a little more than half that amount from
Ravenswood. But the output in 1877 puts the Towers far away at the head
of the list with £1,611,977, as against Gympie, with five years
earlier development, that only produced £1,323,280. The
other goldfields such as the Palmer, that opened in '72, made a
brilliant average of £200,000 a year for the first four
years sunk as low as £6,981 for 1887. Between the years 1884 and
1887 Charters Towers increased its gold output by nearly one half and
the same rate of increase was maintained to the end of 1888. In
comparison other fields such as the Hodgkinson and Mulgrave fields
during the same period were waning and the gold output sunk to
about a fifth of its previous figure. The Gympie goldfield which was
the only rival the Towers had about 1887 was producing only about
two-thirds of the Towers gold production figures. 'The stone
produced on the Towers field averaged Ii ounces gold per ton
whereas Gympie only averaged about one ounce per ton. A miner on the
Towers at this time was earning £3 per week against
£2/10/'- per week earned by miners on the Gympie field.
A comparison of crushing costs shows Towers costs from 12/- to 15/-
which was higher than Gympie but crushing costs at Croydon was
as high as 30/- per ton and on the Palmer field, 17/- to 20/- per ton,
whilst the Etheridge averaged 25/-. The miners wages as already
stated on the Towers field was £3 a week against £4 a week
on the Croydon, Palmer and Georgetown fields.
A Mines Department report of the 10 year period 1877 to 1887 gives the
following production figures from the various fields in Queensland:
Palmer field £333,172, Ravenswood £125,815,
