My name is Patsy O'Connor (nee Smith) granddaughter of Harry Smith who featured in the North West Star article November 15 concerning the history of electricity in Mount Isa.

This letter is meant to correct information pertaining to members of my family.

His name was Harry Smith (no "J"), he was not a navvy for Queensland Rail, he was a blacksmith.

After the railway work was completed he did not carry mail to the west, my grandparents and their son Alfred James (Norman) bought the Kings Hotel in Richmond.

When that burned down (not sure when) the family moved further west to the mining field of Kuridala where they ran the hotel and also had the mail run to Bedourie.

They did not own the picture theatre in Kuridala.

When Kuridala mine worked out c1923 the buildings were demolished and the timber, roofing etc was loaded on to trucks and carried to the new Mount Isa field and be reconstructed there.

My grandparents and their son moved to Mount Isa in 1924 and went into business.

They did not own the Mount Isa Hotel, they leased it from Samuel Allen and Sons Townsville.

They also leased two picture theatres The Star and The Silver City, Iceworks, Smiths Hall (reloaded from Kuridala) and some houses for rent on Townside.

My father Alfred James (Norman) Smith first worked at Mount Isa Mines and helped his parent in business.

In 1927 he married Emma Jensen, the first couple married in Mount Isa, in the Mount Isa Hotel. My two brothers were born in the the hotel prior to my parents moving into their new house at 6 Miles St where I was born in 1936.

Norman and Emma managed the Isa Hotel in 1933 while Harry and his wife went home to the UK. When they returned, they and their sons went to the US to check out the new sensation "the talking movies".

On return Norm was elected to Cloncurry Shire Council.

In 1938 Harry and his wife bought the Hotel Seaview in Townsville and transferred the lease of the Isa Hotel to Norm.

The family moved from 6 Miles St.

In 1939 Norm was elected to state parliament for the seat of Carpentaria.

Now the lease of the Isa Hotel transferred to my mother Emma, the family still had two picture theatres, the iceworks, the Electric Authority, shops in West St and genteel cottages.

My mother held the lease all through the war years till c1946.

Harry died in November 1941, his wife Emma still at the Hotel Seaview until the Australian Army took it over till 1945.

During this period she lived privately next door at 55 The Strand.

The seat of Carpentaria was not abolished in 1960. Norm was defeated in 1960 by Labor candidate Alec Inch.

Norm and Emma remained in Mount Isa in businesses.

The iceworks was closed, the Star theatre sold and Norm and Emma retired in Mount Isa until their deaths in 1983.

I am the last of the Smith family of my generation and pride myself in being able to relate their history.

Patsy O'Connor (nee Smith)

Annandale

Editor's note: I thank Patsy for her contribution and corrections. The original material for the article was from Christine Doran's thesis on North Queensland electricity supply published by James Cook University in 1990. According to a footnote, the material on the Smith family was provided to the author by Jim Smith, Patsy's now deceased brother. And one small correction. The Queensland state seat of Carpentaria was indeed abolished in 1960 and replaced by the new seat called Burke which Alec Inch won. Burke was renamed Mount Isa in 1972.