The Machinery Mile (Ilfracombe, Central West Queensland)
Otherwise known as the Great Machinery Mile, this collection of pastoral equipment hosts a range of equipment from standing engines to earthmoving machinery. A wonderful display of machinery, some of it very rare and almost all collected within 100 miles of the town, can be seen.
Visitors can expect to see many forms of old machinery, including a 1917 Ruston Proctor Tractor (only two more of this model left in the world), Steam Devil, a big Excavator driven by three horse powered steam engine, which runs along one railway line. Made in 1880 and sold in 1882, it would be safe to say this excavator is the only remaining one of its kind. There’s also a 12 tonne Stuart Tank that has been converted to a dozer; the first series grader made by Caterpillar in 1935, an early 1900 Lacre Light Truck, and a 1914 Republic Truck.
Ilfracombe, Queensland:
Ilfracombe, a small railway town in central-western Queensland, is on the Landsborough Highway, 600km west of Rockhampton. The nearest large town is Longreach, 30km to the west.
Situated west of the Barcoo River, the Ilfracombe district was explored by the New South Wales Surveyor-General, Thomas Mitchell in 1846, by Edmund Kennedy in 1847, and by William Landsborough in 1862. Pastoral occupation followed Landsborough's expedition, the first pastoral station occupied in 1863, and the Portland Downs station (which continues until this day) taken up soon afterwards. In the early 1870s the New Zealand and Australia Land Company (headquartered in Scotland) acquired a vast tract, 'Wellshot' comprising almost half of the territory of the future shire. Wellshot Station, named after a major shareholder's Glasgow estate, was broken up for closer-settlement in 1948.
In 1890 the colonial government indicated its intention to extend the railway line from Barcaldine to Longreach and named a temporary terminus 'Ilfracombe', apparently so as to clearly distinguish the new railhead from Wellshot Station, the latter name having given over to the district generally. Ilfracombe had a brief boom: its status as temporary railhead in the early 1890s gave rise to five hotels and several businesses. A school opened in 1893, Anglican and Catholic churches within a few years, and artesian water supplemented the meagre town dam supply in 1896.
Teamsters or carriers as they were sometimes known, provided an essential service of carrying goods and stock across trackless country to the new stations of western Queensland. The first teamsters into a new country were limited to the use of drays, which were more manoeuvrable than wagons. Among the essential equipment of these first teamsters were axes to clear tracks of land, picks, and shovels to make creek crossings and a piece of brightly coloured rag. The rag was tied to a wheel so that its revolutions could be easily counted. These rough measurements of distance gave carriers a guide for cartage charges and provided a bush standard which remained in use until the introduction of surveyors and roadmakers. Ilfracombe provided work for teamsters up until a branch railway line was opened from Jericho to Blackall in 1908. At this time many teamsters traded in their horse and ox and replaced them with motor lorries. Others hung up their reins and looked for work with the railways or at the wool scour which opened in Ilfracombe in 1898/1899.
In 1902 widespread drought depressed the local economy, and, according to local historian Peter Forrest, within two years Ilfracombe's 'golden years were over'. Ilfracombe Shire was severed from the existing Aramac division in 1903 and the post office was converted to a shire office, which functioned in that manner until 1966. The surrounding pastoral stations employed workforces sufficient to keep three town hotels going up until the 1920s. During its heyday, Ilfracombe was very much a town of firsts - in the 1890s Wellshot Station boasted the largest head count of sheep in the world, while Beaconsfield Station, to the town's north, developed innovative sheep wash that was at the forefront of wool processing technology (the ruins of which are listed on the Queensland heritage register). The motorised postal service from Ilfracombe to Isisford, begun in 1910, was Australia's first.
Other town facilities, though, were rudimentary, the galvanized iron housing decidedly primitive by the onset of the postwar years. The wool-boom of the 1950s saw a spurt of civic improvements; a swimming pool was built in 1948, a war memorial park (1951), reticulated water (1953), a shire hall (1956), and new shire offices in 1966. The collapse of wool prices in the late 1960s ended Ilfracombe's second episode of prosperity, with many rural workers laid off, sheep properties operating on rationalised workforces.
Ilfracombe today is a one-pub town, (the Wellshot Hotel), and has a shire hall, a racecourse (two meetings a year), a caravan park, the State primary school, a swimming pool, a golf course, two churches, and machinery and heritage museums. Romani Hall (1999) has a display dedicated to the 2/14th Ilfracombe Light Horse Troop. Ilfracombe's best known citizen is Dame Quentin Bryce, Governor of Queensland 2003 - 2008, and Governor General of Australia from 2008 - 2014.
Source: Queensland Places (queenslandplaces.com.au/ilfracombe-shire), Outback Queensland, & Queensland Heritage Register.
The Machinery Mile (Ilfracombe, Central West Queensland)
Otherwise known as the Great Machinery Mile, this collection of pastoral equipment hosts a range of equipment from standing engines to earthmoving machinery. A wonderful display of machinery, some of it very rare and almost all collected within 100 miles of the town, can be seen.
Visitors can expect to see many forms of old machinery, including a 1917 Ruston Proctor Tractor (only two more of this model left in the world), Steam Devil, a big Excavator driven by three horse powered steam engine, which runs along one railway line. Made in 1880 and sold in 1882, it would be safe to say this excavator is the only remaining one of its kind. There’s also a 12 tonne Stuart Tank that has been converted to a dozer; the first series grader made by Caterpillar in 1935, an early 1900 Lacre Light Truck, and a 1914 Republic Truck.
Ilfracombe, Queensland:
Ilfracombe, a small railway town in central-western Queensland, is on the Landsborough Highway, 600km west of Rockhampton. The nearest large town is Longreach, 30km to the west.
Situated west of the Barcoo River, the Ilfracombe district was explored by the New South Wales Surveyor-General, Thomas Mitchell in 1846, by Edmund Kennedy in 1847, and by William Landsborough in 1862. Pastoral occupation followed Landsborough's expedition, the first pastoral station occupied in 1863, and the Portland Downs station (which continues until this day) taken up soon afterwards. In the early 1870s the New Zealand and Australia Land Company (headquartered in Scotland) acquired a vast tract, 'Wellshot' comprising almost half of the territory of the future shire. Wellshot Station, named after a major shareholder's Glasgow estate, was broken up for closer-settlement in 1948.
In 1890 the colonial government indicated its intention to extend the railway line from Barcaldine to Longreach and named a temporary terminus 'Ilfracombe', apparently so as to clearly distinguish the new railhead from Wellshot Station, the latter name having given over to the district generally. Ilfracombe had a brief boom: its status as temporary railhead in the early 1890s gave rise to five hotels and several businesses. A school opened in 1893, Anglican and Catholic churches within a few years, and artesian water supplemented the meagre town dam supply in 1896.
Teamsters or carriers as they were sometimes known, provided an essential service of carrying goods and stock across trackless country to the new stations of western Queensland. The first teamsters into a new country were limited to the use of drays, which were more manoeuvrable than wagons. Among the essential equipment of these first teamsters were axes to clear tracks of land, picks, and shovels to make creek crossings and a piece of brightly coloured rag. The rag was tied to a wheel so that its revolutions could be easily counted. These rough measurements of distance gave carriers a guide for cartage charges and provided a bush standard which remained in use until the introduction of surveyors and roadmakers. Ilfracombe provided work for teamsters up until a branch railway line was opened from Jericho to Blackall in 1908. At this time many teamsters traded in their horse and ox and replaced them with motor lorries. Others hung up their reins and looked for work with the railways or at the wool scour which opened in Ilfracombe in 1898/1899.
In 1902 widespread drought depressed the local economy, and, according to local historian Peter Forrest, within two years Ilfracombe's 'golden years were over'. Ilfracombe Shire was severed from the existing Aramac division in 1903 and the post office was converted to a shire office, which functioned in that manner until 1966. The surrounding pastoral stations employed workforces sufficient to keep three town hotels going up until the 1920s. During its heyday, Ilfracombe was very much a town of firsts - in the 1890s Wellshot Station boasted the largest head count of sheep in the world, while Beaconsfield Station, to the town's north, developed innovative sheep wash that was at the forefront of wool processing technology (the ruins of which are listed on the Queensland heritage register). The motorised postal service from Ilfracombe to Isisford, begun in 1910, was Australia's first.
Other town facilities, though, were rudimentary, the galvanized iron housing decidedly primitive by the onset of the postwar years. The wool-boom of the 1950s saw a spurt of civic improvements; a swimming pool was built in 1948, a war memorial park (1951), reticulated water (1953), a shire hall (1956), and new shire offices in 1966. The collapse of wool prices in the late 1960s ended Ilfracombe's second episode of prosperity, with many rural workers laid off, sheep properties operating on rationalised workforces.
Ilfracombe today is a one-pub town, (the Wellshot Hotel), and has a shire hall, a racecourse (two meetings a year), a caravan park, the State primary school, a swimming pool, a golf course, two churches, and machinery and heritage museums. Romani Hall (1999) has a display dedicated to the 2/14th Ilfracombe Light Horse Troop. Ilfracombe's best known citizen is Dame Quentin Bryce, Governor of Queensland 2003 - 2008, and Governor General of Australia from 2008 - 2014.
Source: Queensland Places (queenslandplaces.com.au/ilfracombe-shire), Outback Queensland, & Queensland Heritage Register.