How a Communist Rag in Darwin Became a Newspaper for Mount Isa

A continuing presence in Mount Isa is the North West Star, which will be 40 years old next year, but there were two earlier Mount Isa newspapers, and before that a string of Cloncurry newspapers tried to cover the wider district. The first newspaper for Cloncurry, an hour's drive to the east of Mount Isa, was the Cloncurry Advocate and Flinders Pastoral and Mining Register, established in 1889. In later years, the Advocate had competition at various times: from the Mining News for a few years at the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, the Western Mail from about 1915-18, and the Cloncurry News and Mount Isa Record from 1921 until January 29, 1933. The first newspaper specifically directed at a Mount Isa readership was the Mount Isa Standard, printed in Brisbane at the Coronation Printery. H.B. Waldegrave published this weekly paper from January 22, 1948, until August 19, 1949