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Date: May 2004
Location: Charters Towers, Queensland Australia
As we descended into the gloomy cellar under the colonial house, we were on the lookout for a ghost.
More specifically, the ghost of a certain Thomas Smith, who allegedly built the large mansion with ill-gotten gains in the late 1800s.
"One woman said she felt something brush past her shoulder when she was down here," said my guide.
"It was said Thomas Smith was a share broker who worked in a mine office and either misappropriated gold or siphoned off money to build the house.
"He took his life in this cellar after allegedly losing his shirt in a gambling game."
But the late Mr Smith obviously didn't feel like rattling any chains today and we walked up the stairs into the mansion.
Known as Ay-Ot Lookout, the house has been restored to its colonial grandeur, down to its fabrics, fittings and furnishings.
It is among many grand colonial buildings which adorn Charters Towers, 135km south-west of Townsville, in Tropical North Queensland.
Charters Towers was once the second largest city in Queensland and site of a massive gold rush in the late 19th century.
The town sprang out of the plains after a little indigenous stock boy named Jupiter Mosman, barely 10, discovered the gold while chasing horses spooked by a thunderstorm. He literally saw the precious metal glittering in a stream.
Charters Towers quickly grew into a sprawling mining town and evidence of its wealth is still around in the form of grand, colonial buildings.
A must-see for me was the Stock Exchange building which was hooked into the world via telegraph from 1890.
The exchange is a great open thoroughfare and it is easy to imagine the stock brokers busy at work in their offices, which have now been converted to shops.
Charters Towers was known as The World but no one knows why for sure. Perhaps it was because the town was connected to the world through the stock exchange's telegraph.
These days the biggest debate around town is whether 'World' was spelt 'Worlde.'
In the centre of Charters Towers, the World Theatre is definitely spelt without the 'e'.
This impressive building was once the Australian Bank of Commerce, built in 1892.
It was converted into a theatre and cinema complex in 1996, containing an amazingly large 660 seat auditorium.
Another place worth a look is the Venus Gold Battery on the outskirts of town.
Here, gold was processed from 1872 until 1972 and a guided tour gives an indication of the innovation and hard work which went into the processing of gold.
At its peak, Charters Towers housed 29 crushing mills, a population of 30,000 and a staggering 92 hotels to quench the miners' thirst.
Today, it offers an insight into an amazing real-life gold rush in the late 19th century.
For more information:
Townsville Enterprise
Tel +61 7 4726 2728
- By Shaun O'Dowd
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