Cloncurry Post Office is a heritage-listed

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional serv ...

at 47 Scarr Street,

Cloncurry Cloncurry is a rural town and locality in the Shire of Cloncurry, Queensland, Australia. In the the locality of Cloncurry had a population of 2,719 people. Cloncurry is the administrative centre of the Shire of Cloncurry. Cloncurry is known ...

Shire of Cloncurry The Shire of Cloncurry is a local government area in North West Queensland, Australia. It covers an area of , and has existed as a local government entity since 1884. The major town and administrative centre of the shire is Cloncurry. Prior to ...

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

, Australia. It was designed by

Queensland Works Department The Department of Communities, Housing and Digital Economy (CHDE), formerly the Department of Housing and Public Works, is a ministerial department within the Queensland Government, tasked with providing housing (including homelessness and buil ...

and built in 1906. It was added to the

Queensland Heritage Register The Queensland Heritage Register is a heritage register, a statutory list of places in Queensland, Australia that are protected by Queensland legislation, the Queensland Heritage Act 1992. It is maintained by the Queensland Heritage Council. A ...

on 27 May 2005.

History

The Cloncurry Post Office is a single storey timber building, which was built in 1906 and superseded an 1883 post office on site. Land in the Cloncurry district was taken up by pastoralists from the mid-1860s. Access to

artesian water An artesian aquifer is a confined aquifer containing groundwater under positive pressure. An artesian aquifer has trapped water, surrounded by layers of impermeable rock or clay, which apply positive pressure to the water contained within th ...

from the 1890s enabled the grazing of sheep and cattle to flourish in what is essentially a semi-arid environment and

pastoralism Pastoralism is a form of animal husbandry where domesticated animals (known as " livestock") are released onto large vegetated outdoor lands ( pastures) for grazing, historically by nomadic people who moved around with their herds. The ani ...

has been the major industry in this area. Mining also proved a significant activity in the district, although a less stable one than pastoralism. Gold was first discovered in the area in 1867, and from the late 1860s through the last three decades of the 19th century, gold was found and mined throughout the district, although as a series of short lived fields. In 1867 Ernest Henry, often referred to as "the father of Cloncurry", discovered copper in the area, not far from the present town of Cloncurry, although the boom era for copper mining was not reached until the early twentieth century. The township of Cloncurry was established in the early 1870s to serve a remote and isolated area in the far north west of Queensland. It was officially designated a Country Post Office in 1871 and in June that year the first postmaster was appointed, operating from temporary accommodation. In 1872 a general store and a hotel were opened, forming the nucleus for a service township. Early transportation was by horse, bullock and camel teams. Mail contractors using pack horses operated mail runs along routes radiating from Cloncurry as the demand for postal services increased in subsequent years. Cloncurry prospered in the 1880s, when prices for pastoral produce remained buoyant and mining activity increased. The first

Cobb & Co Cobb & Co was the name used by many successful sometimes quite independent Australian coaching businesses. The first was established in 1853 by American Freeman Cobb and his partners. The name Cobb & Co grew to great prominence in the late 19t ...

coach arrived in Cloncurry in 1884, and for almost a quarter of a century provided the district with both a passenger and a mail service in the absence of a railway. The Great Northern railway reached Cloncurry in 1908. The first purpose-designed Cloncurry Post Office was a small timber building comprising an office and post master's quarters, erected in 1883. In that year Cloncurry Post Office was made a Money Order Office and an official electric telegraph station. The first telegraph lines connected Cloncurry with Aramac and

Boulia Boulia () is an outback town and locality in the Shire of Boulia, Queensland, Australia. In the , Boulia had a population of 301 people. Boulia is the administrative centre of the Boulia Shire, population approximately 600, which covers an area ...

. In 1888 a line was established between Cloncurry and Normanton, and in 1890 Cloncurry was linked to

Camooweal Camooweal is an outback town and locality in the City of Mount Isa, Queensland, Australia. The locality is on the Queensland border with the Northern Territory. In the , the locality of Camooweal had a population of 208 people. Geography The l ...

and

Urandangi Urandangi (formerly also spelled Urandangie) is an outback town in the locality of Piturie in the Shire of Boulia, Queensland, Australia. Geography The town is located on the banks of the Georgina River in Central West Queensland, north we ...

. Cloncurry had police stationed in the town from 1870 and was designated a District Court Area in 1889. The first Court sat in 1900 and in 1906 became a designated District Court. This important function could not have been carried out without the means of rapid communication provided by the post and telegraph service. In the first two decades of the 20th century, Cloncurry prospered with the boom in copper prices and the corresponding surge in copper mining activity in the district. In 1906 a new post office was designed for Cloncurry and erected at a cost of . It was a large office building for post and telegraph functions, connected by a covered way to a separate postmaster's quarters. These were in the old post office, which was turned to face Scarr Street and moved behind the new building. The new post office was a standard T17 type of timber post office, with a twin

porch A porch (from Old French ''porche'', from Latin ''porticus'' "colonnade", from ''porta'' "passage") is a room or gallery located in front of an entrance of a building. A porch is placed in front of the facade of a building it commands, and form ...

and

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aest ...

, designed by the Queensland Works Department. These were erected throughout Queensland in the period 1906-1921, although post and telegraph services became an

Australian Government The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Like other Westminster-style systems of government, the Australian Government ...

responsibility after

Federation A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government (federalism). In a federation, the self-govern ...

. These buildings achieved a high standard of design and construction and architecturally, the T17 is the most significant of 20th century timber post office types for the quality of construction and detail, for its resolution of climatic considerations, and for the visual appeal of its form. Many of the type have, however, been demolished or are no longer functional post offices. This post office has been extended at the side, the extension covering the area previously occupied by the old post office. A new

telephone exchange telephone exchange, telephone switch, or central office is a telecommunications system used in the public switched telephone network (PSTN) or in large enterprises. It interconnects telephone subscriber lines or virtual circuits of digital syste ...

was opened at Cloncurry in 1912 and in the 1920s the establishment of

QANTAS Qantas Airways Limited ( ) is the flag carrier of Australia and the country's largest airline by fleet size, international flights, and international destinations. It is the List of airlines by foundation date, world's third-oldest airline sti ...

in 1922 and the

Flying Doctor Service Flying Doctors may refer to: * Royal Flying Doctor Service, an air medical service in Australia ** '' The Flying Doctors'', an Australian television drama series ** ''The Flying Doctor'', a 1936 Australian-British film * Los Médicos Voladores, t ...

in 1929 at Cloncurry made the town an epicentre of the north-west. By the 1950s Cloncurry was a centre for mail, telephone and telegraph services for huge area from Normanton to Boulia and west to Camooweal. A brick extension to the post office was constructed in 1954 to house these services as well as the control station for north west Queensland's Auxiliary Radio network. This base was moved to

Mount Isa Mount Isa ( ) is a city in the Gulf Country region of Queensland, Australia. It came into existence because of the vast mineral deposits found in the area. Mount Isa Mines (MIM) is one of the most productive single mines in world history, b ...

in 1964 as that centre grew in importance. The Cloncurry Post Office continues to operate as such.

Description

The post office is a single storey timber building set on low stumps and located prominently on the corner of Scarr and Sheaffe Streets. The original section is symmetrical in form with a projecting

over the main public area between twin porches, the roof for which was an extension of the main roof. The porches are reached by low sets of timber steps and have timber

balustrading A baluster is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its cons ...

. The roof is hipped and clad in clad in

corrugated iron Corrugated galvanised iron or steel, colloquially corrugated iron (near universal), wriggly tin (taken from UK military slang), pailing (in Caribbean English), corrugated sheet metal (in North America) and occasionally abbreviated CGI is a b ...

. A later extension with a gable roof is connected to this building and continues the materials and detail of the original.

Heritage listing

Cloncurry Post Office was listed on the

on 27 May 2005 having satisfied the following criteria. The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history. Cloncurry Post Office illustrates the development of Cloncurry and district in the early 20th century and has been the focus of services which played an important part in allowing this geographically isolated town to become a major regional centre. The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places. It is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of a timber twin porch and gable post office building of the period 1906-1921, designed by the Queensland Works Department, and has aesthetic value which contributes significantly to the Cloncurry townscape. The place is important because of its aesthetic significance. It is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of a timber twin porch and gable post office building of the period 1906-1921, designed by the Queensland Works Department, and has aesthetic value which contributes significantly to the Cloncurry townscape. The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons. The Cloncurry Post Office has had a long connection with the people of Cloncurry and the surrounding district as a provider of vital communication services which have been conducted from this site since 1883.

References

Attribution

External links

* {{Australian Post Offices, state=collapsed Queensland Heritage Register Cloncurry, Queensland Post office buildings in Queensland Articles incorporating text from the Queensland Heritage Register