The Mount Isa Mine Early Infrastructure, established in the 1920s and early 1930s and located on the western edge of Mount Isa, is important as surviving evidence of the establishment of large-scale mining by the Mount Isa Mining Company. It retains a symbolic association with the work of MIM, which, as Queensland’s richest mining venture, made an important contribution to the Queensland economy since its establishment. The development of the mining infrastructure was on a scale rare in Queensland mining, and the place has potential to reveal further information that may contribute to knowledge of the early mining processes used in Queensland.
John Campbell Miles discovered the ores of Mount Isa as lead outcrops early in 1923. Such a late find on a mineral field closely prospected for nearly sixty years was probably due to the fact that most Queensland prospectors were looking for copper or gold and lead mining was an alien tradition. However, while the discovery was first acknowledged in 1923, it is not improbable that the Mount Isa deposits were long known and ignored.
By the end of 1923, 118 leases had been pegged on the Mount Isa field and of these William Corbould, formerly of the Mount Elliott Company at Selwyn, acquired 51 leases. In January 1924, Corbould's Mount Isa Mining Company was registered in New South Wales. Soon after two other companies were floated - Mount Isa Silver-Lead Proprietary and Mount Isa South, but by December 1925 both had been bought by Mount Isa Mines in a coup unprecedented in Australian mining - a single company held virtually the entire mineralised area of what promised to be a major field.
Support for the new mining venture came from the Queensland Labor Government which gave the government geologist, EC Saint-Smith, permission to act as general manager at Mount Isa for six months to August 1924, and in September the State geological survey undertook Australia's first aerial photographic survey for geological purposes over six square miles at Mount Isa. In October 1925 the Queensland Parliament passed the Duchess to Mount Isa Railway Act.
During 1924 the Mount Isa Mines sank thirty-three shafts and realised that enormous capital would be required. William Corbould visited London regularly between 1924 and 1927 trying to raise capital. In June 1927 the Russo-Asiatic Consolidated Company chaired by Leslie Urquhart, took control of operation and development of Mount Isa. Corbould resigned but retained a non-voting seat as Honorary Advisory Director in London.
On the 7th of June 1926 the company announced a major reconstruction scheme. The scheme, if successful would provide Russo-Asiatic with a working capital of £860,000 for its activities outside Russia. The announcement of the 'no capital' restructuring arrangements for Mount Isa saw an increase in the value of Russo Asiatic and a scramble to purchase Mount Isa shares. The scheme commanded considerable attention in the London Press with the Financial Times remarking that the 'no capital reorganisation' scheme was proving successful because it appeared to encourage the Queensland government to give its assurance that the government "was anxious and willing to assist the enterprise."
The resources of Russo-Asiatic, acquired through the restructuring assisted Mount Isa's development. The New York firm of HH Knox and JH Allen produced plans for exploration and development of the Black Star lode and devised a treatment process. In January 1928 Urquhart visited Mount Isa to inspect all-embracing plans for a major dam and pipeline, an employee housing program, and a development schedule for mining, milling and treatment. Knox arrived at Mount Isa in April to design the treatment plan and was followed by fellow American engineers, CA Mitke and JM Callow.
Urquhart Shaft and Headframe (1930 - 1931):
Before Russo-Asiatic's engineers had visited the field, Corbould and his geologists decided that separate shafts should penetrate each ore-body and a railway should carry the ore from the shaftheads to a central treatment plant in the valley to the north. After a year of diamond drilling however, the ore-bodies were found grouped so closely, that they could be worked cheaply by use of an underground railway linking them to central shafts. Charles Mitke designed the Man and Supply shaft to take all men and materials underground and the Urquhart shaft to hoist the ore and pump the water.
Mitke's plan transferred the main ore shaft and treatment plant to the town side of the long ridge, which divided the struggling township on the river flats from the previous centre of mining activity in the valley. Mitke supervised the sinking of the Urquhart shaft in 1929. Work proceeded simultaneously with the service shaft and development shafts in the Black Rock and Rio Grande ore-bodies, but was not completed at the time of a ministerial inspection in April 1930. The Urquhart shaft had hit an underground reservoir and was never continued to the planned depth.
The Urquhart Shaft and Headframe were erected during 1930 - 1931 and the ore produced had been smelted into lead bullion for shipment overseas by the official opening of the Mount Isa Mines complex by the Hon. E Atherton, Minister for Mines, on the 15th of June 1931. The Urquhart shaft, which went down vertically for half a mile (0.8km), carried 3,000,000 tons of ore and rock each year. It operated for over thirty years until the biggest shaft on the Mount Isa field, then known as the K57 ore shaft, was opened in 1963.
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