Mount Mulligan is a former mining town and now a rural locality in the Shire of Mareeba,

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

, Australia. In the , the locality of Mount Mulligan had "no people or a very low population". It is the site of the Mount Mulligan mine disaster, Queensland's worst mining disaster.

Geography

Although still officially gazetted, Mount Mulligan is now a

ghost town A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...

, with a single cemetery, a single occupied residence, a single chimney stack, and the overgrown remains of the once busy mining operations and electricity generator. Nearby towns are Julatten, Dimbulah, Mount Carbine and Mount Molloy.

History

The conglomerate and sandstone mountain range is known to local Djungan people as Ngarrabullgan. The Djungan people began living on the mountain about 40,000 years ago but ceased to camp on the range about 600 years ago. The range was named Mount Mulligan after prospector James Venture Mulligan by his colleagues in their 1874 exploration expedition searching the Hodgkinson River for gold. The name Mount Mulligan was later given to the town that grew in the shadows of the range's escarpment. The town's coal was mined from shafts dug into a

Permian The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years, from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.902 Mya. It is the s ...

layer within the cliff face or escarpment of a large x free-standing conglomerate and sandstone massif (rising up to 400 metres above the township). It was a

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal i ...

mining town from 1910 until 19 September 1921 when an underground

explosion An explosion is a rapid expansion in volume of a given amount of matter associated with an extreme outward release of energy, usually with the generation of high temperatures and release of high-pressure gases. Explosions may also be generated ...

killed 75 miners (all the miners in the town). The mine closed, but reopened in 1923 and continued in production until 1957 when a hydro-electric scheme eliminated the need for the coal. Mount Mulligan Post Office opened by July 1914 (a

receiving office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional serv ...

had been open from 1907) and closed in 1959. A Mount Mulligan Rail Post Office was open between 1916 and 1920. The Chillagoe railway connected Mount Mulligan with Dimbulah. It opened on 7 April 1915 and was officially closed in January 1958.

Demographics

In the , the locality of Mount Mulligan and the surrounding area had a population of 55 people. In the , the locality of Mount Mulligan had "no people or a very low population". In the , the locality of Mount Mulligan had "no people or a very low population".

Education

There are no schools in Mount Mulligan. The nearest primary and secondary school (P-10) school is Dimbulah State School in Dimbulah to the south, but it would be too distant from many parts of Mount Mulligan. There is no secondary school to Year 12 nearby. Distance education and boarding school are options.

References

External links