We continue our history of Mount Isa in the leadup to the centenary year of 2023.
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Last time we looked at how a new town started to evolve in the West Leichhardt field in the late 1920s. Now we go back to 1924 - Mount Isa's second year and a "story of its first days" as published in the Brisbane Courier on May 1, 1924.
The special correspondent said the new silver-lead discovery was the biggest news in Australian mining in years though the founder John Campbell Miles initially found friends "coldly unappreciative" and one lease was swapped for "not particularly good piece of cowhide".
Government geologist EC Saint-Smith was more positive and was now full time in the area as superintendent of Mount Isa Ltd, one of three companies floated to develop the field.
The correspondent said "many folks in the Cloncurry area think their lease is a world beater, just as the average mother thinks her baby is the best in the land".
There was excitement at Duchess too whose population had grown from a handful to over 350 in six months "most them chockful of the idea that they are the future citizens of Mt Isa city".
A site for the township was selected with agitation for a warden's station.
There was a Progress Association which wanted to secure water services and safeguard community health. They also wanted to reform the system where a claim is staked with one peg, which has led to confusion.
A public commissioner had visited the area and already the area's poor transport links were under the spotlight.
One car took 17 hours to do the 70 miles from Cloncurry to Duchess.
Nevertheless the reporter said the new town was "showing an air of permanence" with the federal government granting 200 pounds for roads and the first concrete crossing was being built over the Leichhardt River.
"Maybe if the field proves itself a railway will follow," the correspondent said prophetically.
To be continued.