My heritage place
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Tyrconnell gold mine, part of the Hodgkinson goldfield in far north Queensland, was once home to 10,000 gold miners and their families.
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Heritage listing for Mihi Creek Complex
The Mihi Creek Complex in North Ipswich has been entered in the Queensland Heritage Register based on its archaeological values.
Queensland Heritage Council (QHC) Chair, David Eades, said the site was a cultural landscape created as a result of mixed use within the area dating back to the early 1860s.
"This important area has been used for two different but connected phases in Queensland's history. It was used by the then Queensland Railways to construct the state's first main line railway, and then as an evolving coal mining and coke manufacturing operation from 1871 to around 1960," Mr Eades said.
"The Mihi Creek Complex provides us with important evidence about the early development of Ipswich and the archaeological artefacts associated with Queensland's first main line railway and early coal mining and coke manufacture and it can potentially provide us with much more information."
Mr Eades said archaeological investigations within the Complex could produce evidence which would confirm or challenge contemporary understandings of the coke industry in Queensland, particularly about coke manufacturing processes, coking infrastructure, coke plant layout, organisation and technical evolution.
"Further investigations could also give us more information about specific operations at Mihi Creek, particularly the geographical extent of coal mining and coke manufacture, , the precise location of key features and more information on the types of equipment used.
"The place could also provide us with quality information about railway construction and design in the 19th Century."
Only nine sites have so far been entered in the Heritage Register since the archaeological place category was introduced in 2008 in amendments to the Queensland Heritage Act 1992.
"Heritage listing will ensure Mihi Creek Complex's potential archaeological values are protected and managed properly," Mr Eades said.
"This doesn't mean development cannot occur in the future – it just means that archaeological issues will need to be addressed in the same way that other development prerequisites are handled."
The Queensland Heritage Council is the state's independent peak body and advisor on heritage matters and determines what places are entered in the Queensland Heritage Register.
Places that are entered in the Heritage Register are considered of importance to Queensland's history and are protected under heritage legislation.