Mount Isa

As planned, I am staying an extra day in Mount Isa. This is fortunate, since I needed to get my car looked at. It’s fine - I booked it when I was at Emerald. While I was sitting in the visitors waiting room, I talked with someone who lives here. I had been completely put off going to the Outback Mount Isa Riversleigh exhibition because I was in the building yesterday, and there were people everywhere. He told me that they had a special children’s day yesterday, and that it would be much quieter today, and he was right.

But firstly I visited some outstanding early buildings in Mount Isa. The mine opened in the 1920s, and rapidly expanded. Other mines in the area closed down at about this time, including the mine at Kuridala. It had a rather large hospital, and Mount Isa bought it and moved it in pieces. It was turned into five buildings, replacing the A frame tents that were being used for the existing hospital, so it was a big improvement. One of the buildings was used as a hospital, and then as a maternity hospital. This building has been moved again to its current location to be a museum. At the time it was a hospital, the matron had kept anything that was replaced, so when they turned it into a museum she gave all the original equipment back. As a result, the museum is full of original equipment!

When Darwin was bombed, Mount Isa was one of the most valuable towns in northern Australia because it was a major producer of lead and copper. The hospital in Darwin had been bombed, so the people were worried that if Mount Isa was bombed, the hospital would be damaged. They decided to create four tunnels near the hospital to house the hospital if it was under threat. The miners took 15 weeks to complete the project, including making furniture, during the time they weren’t working in the mine. After the war, the tunnels were filled in, but the ventilation shaft was left. In the late 1980s the shaft was discovered and people found the underground hospital again. It still had all the equipment in it, so they turned it into a museum as well.

The last building in the collection is a tent house. When Mount Isa was established just about everyone lived in A frame tents. There was no train line, and there wasn’t much in the way of construction materials, so they decided to design a tent in the shape of a house. These had three rooms - two bedrooms and a living area. The toilets, laundries and cooking were shared between 10 tent houses. The tent houses were built between 1931 and 1937, were made of canvas, with windows in them, and lasted until after WWII. Then they were gradually bought and disposed of. However, one lady loved her tent house. It had been extensively modified - the bottom half of the walls had been replaced with cladding, a gazebo style frame had been built above the roof, and the ceilings had been lined with wood. She had an extension the same size as the original tent house which had a large kitchen and a bathroom/laundry. She refused to sell. After she died, her son got it classified by the national trust. It was moved to the site of the other buildings and is now part of the museum.

I visited these this morning, and was very impressed.