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Mount Mulligan, Queensland facts for kids

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Mount Mulligan
Queensland
Chimney@MtMulligan01.jpg
Chimney at Mount Mulligan (June 2006)
Mount Mulligan is located in Queensland
Mount Mulligan
Mount Mulligan
Location in Queensland
Population 4 (2016 census)
 • Density 0.0026/km2 (0.0067/sq mi)
Established 1910
Postcode(s) 4871
Area 1,516.0 km2 (585.3 sq mi)
Time zone AEST (UTC+10:00)
Location
LGA(s) Tablelands Region
State electorate(s) Cook
Federal Division(s) Leichhardt
Localities around Mount Mulligan:
Hurricane Mount Carbine Southedge
Nychum Mount Mulligan Paddys Green
Chillagoe Thornborough Glen Russell

Mount Mulligan is a former mining town and now a rural locality in the Shire of Mareeba, Queensland, Australia. In the 2016 census Mount Mulligan had a population of 4 people.

It is the site of the Mount Mulligan mine disaster, Queensland's worst mining disaster.

History

It was a coal mining town from 1910 until 19 September 1921 when an underground explosion killed 75 miners (all the miners in the town). The mine closed, but reopened in 1923 and continued in production until 1957 when a hydro-electric scheme eliminated the need for the coal.

The town's coal was mined from shafts dug into a Permian layer within the cliff face or escarpment of a large 18 kilometres (11 mi) x 6.5 kilometres (4.0 mi) free-standing conglomerate and sandstone massif (rising up to 400 metres above the township) known by the name given it by the small group of prospectors who first sighted it in 1874 while searching the Hodgkinson River for gold, under the leadership of James Venture Mulligan.

The conglomerate and sandstone massif known to local Djungan aboriginal peoples as Ngarrabullgan was given James Mulligan's surname. The name Mount Mulligan was later given to the township that grew in the shadows of the massif's escarpment.

The area of the township itself remains gazetted as a township, but is now a ghost town, with a single cemetery, a single occupied residence, a single chimney stack, and the overgrown remains of the once busy mining operations and electricity generator. At the 2006 census, Mount Mulligan and the surrounding area had a population of 55.

Mount Mulligan Post Office opened by July 1914 (a receiving office had been open from 1907) and closed in 1959. A Mount Mulligan RailPost Office was open between 1916 and 1920.

Nearby towns are Julatten, Dimbulah, Mount Carbine and Mount Molloy.

Education

There are no schools in Mount Mulligan. The nearest primary and secondary school (P-10) school is Dimbulah State School in Dimbulah to the south, but it would be too distant from many parts of Mount Mulligan. There is no secondary school to Year 12 nearby. Distance education and boarding school are options.

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