Charters Towers

Charters Towers is a city in northern Queensland, Australia. It is located 137 kilometers inland (south-west) from Townsville on the Flinders Highway. In 2006 the population was 7,979 people, some 450 fewer than in the 2001 census.

History and gold mining
The town was founded in the 1870s when gold was discovered by chance at Towers Hill on Christmas Eve 1871 by 12-year-old Aboriginal boy, Jupiter Mossman. Jupiter was with a small group of prospectors including Hugh Mosman, James Fraser and George Clarke. Their horses bolted after a flash of lightning. While he was searching Jupiter found both the horses and a nugget of gold in a creek at the base of Towers Hill. Such were the boom years, between 1872 and 1899, that Charters Towers hosted its own Stock Exchange. A railway between Charters Towers and the coastal port of Townsville was completed in December 1882. During this period, the population was approximately 30,000, making Charters Towers Queensland's largest city outside of Brisbane. The City was also affectionately known as 'The World', as it was said that anything one might desire could be had in the 'Towers', leaving no reason to travel elsewhere.

By 1917 gold mining became uneconomic. During World War I labour was hard to find, and as the mines drove deeper, ventilation and water problems arose. This production decline was similar across Australian gold mines, with rising costs and a fixed gold price eroding profitability. The town entered a long period of relative stagnation and little further development has occurred since.

The Charters Towers gold field produced over 200 tonnes (6.6 million troy ounces) of gold from 1871-1917. The gold is concentrated into veins and was Australia's richest major field with an average grade of 34 grams per tonne. The grade was almost double that of Victorian mines and almost 75 per cent higher than the grades of Western Australian (Kalgoorlie) gold fields of that time.

Town layout
Charters Towers has retained a distinct period character, the grandeur and opulence of 19th century mining boom architecture contrasting dramatically with the dry arid countryside. A large number of historically significant buildings are centred on Gill Street and Mosman Street, the former the commercial heart of Charters Towers. The Post Office building (1892) dominates the town, with a large clock tower that was imported from England and added in 1898. Also in Gill Street is the former Bank of New South Wales (1880), which is a good example of the Classical Revival style of architecture popular at the time. On Mosman Street is the Zara Clark museum, a National Trust-owned centre.

Suburbs in Charters Towers are Columbia, Toll, Southern Cross, Queenton, Towers Hill, Millchester, Mosman Park, Alabama Hill, Lissner, Grand Secret, Richmond Hill, Breddan, Macrossan, Broughton, Seventy Mile and Black Jack.

Economy
Charters Towers is a regional centre for the mining industry, the beef industry and education, specifically boarding schools catering for remote rural families.

Mining
It has been estimated that there exists more gold underground than the total removed in the gold rush. Hundreds of separate mining leases covering an area of 200 square kilometers were consolidated by James Lynch in the 1970s and 1980s and the company Citigold listed on the Australian Securities Exchange in 1993. After 89 years the goldfields were reopened and gold was produced again from the Warrior Mine 4 km southeast of the town in November 2006 by Citigold Corporation Limited. Citigold has announced plans to open three mines directly under the city to extract gold at a rate of 250,000 ounces per year.

Education
Charters Towers has four secondary schools: Columba Catholic College, Blackheath and Thornburgh College, All Souls St Gabriels School and Charters Towers State High School. The nearest university is the James Cook University, in Townsville. Charters Towers is well known as a boarding school town, with families from all over western Queensland, N.T. and W.A. sending their children to school in the district because the education is very good and in not too big a town like Townsville or Cairns.

Geography and climate
Charters Towers township is mildly elevated at 300 metres above sea-level, but this has a noticeable effect with reduced humidity and bigger temperature variations than nearby Townsville. Charters Towers obtains its water supply from the nearby Burdekin River.

Media and communications: The Northern Miner
The Northern Miner newspaper (not to be confused with The Northern Miner, a mining publication in Canada) was first published in August 1872, just eight months after the discovery of gold. Such was its strength in those gold mining days of the late 1880s that The Northern Miner installed a then revolutionary linotype slug casting machine before Brisbane's The Courier Mail. It was the only newspaper (of five published during the boom gold years) that survives today. In 2000, The Northern Miner was linked for the first time to the North Queensland Newspaper Company and therefore News Limited’s electronic layout system and website.

The Goldfield Ashes
The Charters Towers Goldfield Ashes has been an amateur cricket carnival conducted over the long week-end in January since 1948 by the Charters Towers Cricket Association Incorporated (CTCA), and it is now the largest in the southern hemisphere. Players ranging from regional and the country to play. Numbers in recent years have reached just shy of 200 teams. The event is of massive benefit for the town bringing in business for the entire region, especially the town's pubs and clubs. While the higher grades take it very seriously with awards and prizes given, the lower grades take to a more social view. Games involving drinking penalties and costume wearing are all part of the antics. This year more teams were involved than ever and the magic two hundred team mark was not beaten only due to a lack of fields in the region as a lot of the fields are concrete pitches on the properties of families in the region.

Notable people

 * William Edward Harney, Australian writer
 * Cecil Aynsley, member of the Queensland Rugby League team of the century
 * Andrew Symonds, Australian Test cricketer, spent much of his early childhood in Charters Towers
 * Wilhelm Iwan (1871–1958), author, historian, and theologian (lived in Charters Towers for nine years and authored a book describing his experiences)