Industrial treasure: North Queensland's mining heritage

Since 1860 North Queensland has been one of the most important mining provinces in Australia, and significant on a world scale (I'm defining North Queensland as everything north of Mackay and its hinterland). Pastoralism first spread a thin veneer of settlement over the area and established a few ports, such as Bowen, Burketown, Normanton, Cardwell and Townsville, and a couple of inland towns such as Hughenden and Dalrymple. Agriculture added a few more, like Ingham, Irmisfail and Mackay. However the majority of towns were begun by mining and existing towns were heavily boosted, particularly the ports. New ports such as Cairns and Cooktown came into existence, and sorne other settlements like Atherton were begun to supply the mining fields with food and timber. Not only did the population increase, it was far more evenly spread than today, given that most of the mining fields were inland. After all, in the nineteenth century Charters Towers was Queensland's second biggest city