Another treasure
in the James Cook
University Special
Collections library in
Townsville is a battered
minutes book which
contains details of
the May 22, 1890 meeting
at which
it was decided
to set up
a Stock Exchange in the
fabulously rich Queensland
goldmining town of
Charters Towers. On Christmas eve 1871, Aboriginal stablehand, Juniper Mosman,
found a gold nugget in a creek while searching
for a horse which had bolted . His
discovery touched off a massive goldrush which turned Charters Towers into the
second biggest city outside Brisbane ,with a population of
30,000, and 65 pubs.
The town
became known as The
World because you could get anything you wanted there , so there was no need to
travel elsewhere as fine
buildings sprang up and
shops offered a wide range of commodities and services.
Fortunes were made and
lost in what was said to be the richest
goldfield in the
nation, its grades double that of Victorian mines and
even 75 percent higher than
Kalgoorlie. Between 1871 and 1917, 6.6 million troy ounces of gold
were mined . One prospector rode a horse
on which it was
said its shoes
were made of gold.
The
minute book lists the names of the foundation
members of the Stock
Exchange , the only one outside capital cities. Closed in 1916 because
of diminishing returns from mining and
greatly reduced population, the
building is now Heritage listed . Today
the Charters Towers
area is again under close scrutiny by mining
companies and old records
are being scoured . In the process , the minute book , with details of the meeting to set up the
Stock Exchange came to
light , the pages to
be digitised .
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Heritage listed Stock Exchange today
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