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Stanthorpe Museum ComplexStanthorpe Museum sheperd's hut at Ballandean Station

Why not visit the Stanthorpe Historical Museum, High Street, Stanthorpe

(Look for the old windmill & crane opp. Brock Park, north of town 1.4km past Stanthorpe RED ROOSTER)

View the excellent photographic display of old mining works, pioneers and famous local identities,
and the founding of the fruit industry.


You'll be impressed with the collection of farm, industrial, business, household and personal items used in our yesteryears.
 
More about the Museum



Our Heritage...

Athwart the showground hill the museum stands -
A monument to hardy pioneers;
Explorers, squatters, servants, women-folk:
The herdsmen, farmers, miners, sturdy wives,
Whose strength and vision hewed from virgin scrub
The precious things we claim to be of worth,
From grazing lands and mining sites and farms,
Which proudly now comprise
Our Heritage.

Securely housed in glass display cases;
Arranged on shelves with printed story tags;
Adorning walls and hung in ornate frames;
And standing proud upon the wooden floors,
Are relics part of those days gone by
When horses plied the rutted dusty roads,
With pioneers atop the swaying coaches
Or ridng tall across a brave new land.

A roving native dropped his axe of stone
Beside a hollow possum-housing log;
And now both axe, and log with rough cut hole,
Remind us sadly other folk once lived
Where soon new-comers sheep and cattle grazed
To nurture hopeful plans of wealth untold;
Of spacious homesteads gracing boundless lands
And golden grass to far horizons stretched.

 A miners pick rust-pitted by lack of use;
A dolly pot and tamper for crushing ore;
A tiny heap of black alluvial tin;
And photos showing men and sluicing boxes,
All serve to recall the way Stanthorpe begun,
Astride a creaking wagons halting track,
Above the Quartpot's winding rock-strewn course,
Away back then in eighteen seventy two.

A winch for pulling trees on virgin land,
Now place of luscious fruits and tangy wines;
A double furrow plough once drawn by horses
To turn the fecund but sandy granite soil;
So many things recall the steady growth
Through passing years of slow relentless toil,
Of ordered rows of orchards and trellised vines
Out spread across the blooming country side.

Athwart the showground hill the museum stands;
A monument to eager folk of former times;
The storemen, blacksmiths, trading men,
Their loving wives and sons, and daughters too
Whose honest hands with purpose built a town
To service those whose sweat and salty tears
Once rained upon the any precious things
Which proudly now comnprise
Our Heritage.

written by Geoffrey Hamlyn-Harris



Stanthorpe Museum Photos
Stanthorpe Museum

Willson's Downfall GaolStanthorpe Museum sign

Railway Station signsSchool House


More about the Museum

 

More information on the early history of Stanthorpe & District can be found in -

 

 "They Came to a Plateau"

(The Stanthorpe Saga) by Jean Harslett and Mervyn Royle


First Edition, February,1972,
Second Edition, April,1973, Third Edition, December, 1980 (Revised)


National Library of Australia Card Number and

ISBN 0 86774 002 7

(Inside front flap of cover)

Few areas have passed through such definite patterns of change or have had a mre colourful and chequered history than the Stanthorpe district.
The coming of the pastoralists, follow-in the footsteps of explorer Cunningham, meant the birth of the sheep industry in Queensland.
In 1872, another grand era began with the discovery of rich alluvial tin deposits.
As supplies of tin dwindled, no ghost mining town developed here, but in its stead, a new industry. The enthusiasm of the prospectors was directed to the growing of deciduous fruits, and an industry developed, destined to be the only one of its kind in the State.


Squatters -
"In a letter home the Leslie Brothers described the wide cracks between the slabs in their rough huts, while Eliza Marsh mentioned that at night she could see the stars through the holes in the bark roof.

Tin Mining -
"Mr Miles, M.L.A. in 1874 said 'the district of Stanthorpe had contributed more largely to the prosperity of Queensland than any other district in it'.

Deciduous Fruits -
"Border Post Editorial, 1873, 'Cultivation of deciduous fruits unsurpassed, of which we have occuar demonstration .... excellent foils for wine grape growing' ".