Lappa is a former railway town on the western side of the

Atherton Tablelands The Atherton Tableland is a fertile plateau which is part of the Great Dividing Range in Queensland, Australia. The principal river flowing across the plateau is the Barron River. It was dammed to form an irrigation reservoir named Lake Tinar ...

near Petford in the

Shire of Mareeba The Shire of Mareeba is a local government area at the base of Cape York Peninsula in Far North Queensland, inland from Cairns. The shire, administered from the town of Mareeba, covered an area of , and existed as a local government entity from ...

Far North Queensland Far North Queensland (FNQ) is the northernmost part of the Australian state of Queensland. Its largest city is Cairns and it is dominated geographically by Cape York Peninsula, which stretches north to the Torres Strait, and west to the Gulf C ...

, Australia.

Geography

Lappa is on the

Burke Developmental Road The Burke Developmental Road is a Queensland (Australia) developmental road. It links Cloncurry and Normanton in a south–north direction, then turns to the north-east north of Normanton for before turning south-east till Dimbulah, where it ...

which runs roughly east to west to the immediate north of the town. To the south of the town is the Lappa railway station which is on the

Savannahlander The Savannahlander is an Australian passenger train service (primarily serving tourists) that operates in Far North Queensland. It travels on the Tablelands railway line and the Etheridge railway line from the coastal city of Cairns to Forsay ...

route. Heading south is the road to

Mount Garnet Mount Garnet is a rural town and locality in the Tablelands Region, Queensland, Australia. In the , Mount Garnet had a population of 430 people. Geography Various small communities populate the area around Mount Garnet. These include Tableland ...

. The Lappa-Mount Garnet Road which was formerly a train line (which closed in 1961), which was built following Abdul Wade's camel track and is today a popular 4 wheel drive and mountain biking trail.

History

Silver was discovered in the area in 1891 by the Halpin Brothers. The town has had several name changes in its relatively short existence. Originally named Lappa Lappa by

Queensland Railways Queensland Rail (QR) is a railway operator in Queensland, Australia. Owned by the Queensland Government, it operates local and long-distance passenger services, as well as owning and maintaining approximately 6,600 kilometres of track and relate ...

after the nearby silver, lead and zinc mines this name is the Aboriginal name for a large rock bluff there. One of the Lappa's was dropped over the years but then Lappa Junction became the local name and survived until 1943 it was shortened to Lappa once more. The Loch Lomond State School opened on 25 July 1900 but was subsequently renamed Lappa Lappa State School. The school closed 1902. The Chillagoe branch railway line was a private railway built for the Chillagoe Railway and Mining Company. Starting at

Mareeba Mareeba is a rural town and locality in the Shire of Mareeba in Far North Queensland, Australia. Between 2008 and 2013, it was within the Tablelands Region. The town's name is derived from an Aboriginal word meaning ''meeting of the waters'' ...

, the line reached Lappa Junction on 1 October 1900 and was subsequently extended to

Mungana Mungana is part of the rural locality of Chillagoe, north Queensland, Australia and a former mining township in its own right. It is within the local government area of Shire of Mareeba (between 2008 and 2013, it was within the Tablelands Regio ...

. It was taken over the

Queensland Government The Queensland Government is the democratic administrative authority of the Australian state of Queensland. The Government of Queensland, a parliamentary constitutional monarchy was formed in 1859 as prescribed in its Constitution, as amended fr ...

in 1919. In 1904, the population was 200-300 men.

Heritage buildings

Three main buildings remain at Lappa. The oldest is the Lappa Railway Station built by William Hastie and opened at Lappa in November 1900. By 1901 there were two hotels at Lappa, Thomas Dillon's and Isabella Waltons. Waltons is the one that survives today. It was the Family Hotel run by A E Williams in 1908/9 and by Mary Gordon 1909/10.Ysidro Barbera a Spaniard bought the Hotel in 1910 and changed the name to Espanol Hotel. Fred Winters ran the hotel for four months before passing away on 20 March 1921.Vida Leonard and her family ran the Espanol from 1923 until it closed in 1966.Vida's Son Wiggy Leonard was the man behind the bar for many of those years. The hotel license was surrendered in December 1966. The old kitchen remains behind the hotel. The Espanol Hotel today is a BYO pub and museum. The current "publican" of the Espanol Hotel at Lappa is a colourful character who goes by the name of "The Yappa from Lappa" He has worn this title for 33 years and has collected the local history that is on display in the pub turned museum. The Espanol Hotel is listed on the Mareeba Shire's local heritage register. The third building is the Almaden Church which was built in 1900 at Almaden and moved to Lappa in the early 1940s. It was built onto and serves as the main house.

References

External links

{{commons category-inline, Lappa, Queensland Shire of Mareeba Unbounded localities in Queensland