Ebagoola Township and Battery is a heritage-listed mining camp at Yarraden, Shire of Cook, Queensland, Australia. It was built from 1900 to 1913. It is also known as Ada Stewart Battery and Ebagoolah Township. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 15 May 2006.
History
The township of Ebagoola was situated on the Hamilton Goldfield on the western fall of the McIllwraith Range, on Cape York Peninsula. The goldfield, named after the Member of Queensland Legislative Assembly for Cook, gold miner/investor John Hamilton, was proclaimed on 13 July 1900 following prospector John Dickie's report of gold in the area in January 1900.
Alluvial gold had been discovered on the Cape York Peninsula as early as 1876, on the Coen River, after the Palmer River goldfield drew attention to the region. A small rush ensued in 1878. Although this soon dissipated, by the late 1880s a small township had been formed at Coen. In 1892 the Coen Goldfield was proclaimed officially and reefing work commenced. Although production totals paled in comparison with fields such as the Palmer, within the next few years the erection of batteries and a cyanide works at Coen gave the northern Peninsula a permanent base for prospecting expeditions. Gold was found on the Starcke River in 1890, at Batavia (Wenlock) in 1892, Ebagoola in 1899 and Potallah in 1902.
The township of Ebagoola was surveyed in September 1900 to service the newly proclaimed Hamilton Goldfield. The first Ebagoola camp was near the site of Dickie's discovery, but the surveyed town was located a mile to the north at the northern end of the field.
The majority of surveyed allotments were quickly purchased and a number of small businesses were established. Characteristic of new mining towns, these included a butchery (the first business established on the field), a general store and a hotel. These buildings were rudimentary, slab-walled structures with roofs clad with bark sheets held down by saplings, canvas over a ridge pole, and iron sheeting.
By November 1900 the population of the field was estimated at 330, of whom 130 were alluvial miners, 100 quartz miners, 50 businessmen and non-miners, and 50 women and children. Fever, dysentery and eye trouble were prevalent in the last part of the year, due to the lack of clean well water. By the end of 1900, as a measure of confidence in the place, three large hotels and several substantial stores had been built, and dwellings were being erected as fast as building material could be obtained. Reserves had been laid out for Government buildings and the hospital on a mound at the northern end of town. The town was serviced by a post office from 1900 to 1917 and a school operated from 1905 to 1914.
As mining and ore treatment intensified on the field, Ebagoola township developed rapidly in the early 1900s. New businesses included two cordial manufacturers, a chemist, baker, two barbers, two blacksmiths, a confectioner, tobacconist, dressmaker, two auctioneers, commission agent and an accountant. There was also a tent hospital run by the chemist's wife, and a coach service from Ebagoola to Port Stewart, the closest port, about east and about north of Cooktown. The first gold-bearing ore from the Hamilton field had to be sent to Coen, about north, for crushing. By November 1900 there was only one 5-head stamper battery on the Hamilton field, and that was poorly equipped. It serviced the output of fifty mines and floods had caused its closure for 12 weeks at the beginning of 1901. However, the official return of gold for 1900 was of reef gold and of alluvial, valued at .
At the end of 1900 the 10-head Ada Stewart battery at Coen was relocated to Ebagoola, in time to crush ore during the wet season. A third battery was established on the field soon after.
Intensive mining activity in the Ebagoola district proved to be of short duration. Within a decade, the mines were closing. In 1907 the Pioneer battery was moved to the nearby Lukin field and in the same year the Ada Stewart battery changed ownership, and again in 1910. From 1909 to 1913 Berryman and Pool cyanided the Ada Stewart battery sands.
By 1910 the population of the field was recorded as 101, less than a third of the estimated population of late 1900. All the mines at Ebagoola had closed by 1913 and the town was practically deserted by the start of World War I (August 1914), with only one hotel, the Hamilton, still operating. By 1924 there were only a few fossickers getting very little gold. Tom Miller, the last resident of Ebagoola, died in 1958 and his corrugated iron hut remains, as do early tree plantings and street alignments.