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Echidna Maps is a public knowledge map for historic places, local memories, industrial sites, old tracks, lookouts, ruins, and community stories.
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Mount Mulligan Coal Mine Disaster, 19 September 1921
Mapped place
At about 9:25 a.m. on 19 September 1921, a coal-dust explosion at the Mount Mulligan coal mine killed all 75 men on shift. It remains Queensland’s worst mining disaster. The disaster led to a Royal Commission and changes to Queensland coal-mining safety law, including tighter attention to explosives, coal dust and the use of open lights. The victims are buried at Mount Mulligan Cemetery, about 1 km north of the village. The mine later reopened, but closed in 1957; the town was abandoned in 1958. This landscape remains historically significant as a place of work, loss and remembrance. Visitors should approach the ruins and cemetery respectfully; there is no entry to mine workings.
Gordon Street looking west to Mulgrave Mill, Gordonvale
Mapped place
Dirt road into early Gordonvale—surveyed in 1896 as Nelson and renamed Gordonvale in 1913—looking west along what became Gordon Street. Mulgrave Mill buildings and chimney show at left/south in the mid-ground, with the Lamb Range on the western horizon. The SLQ original title was the generic “Road outside Cairns”; local identification places it here from the mill and range. The photo itself is undated (SLQ undated sepia; Facebook describes it as very early Gordonvale). This corridor later fed into the Bruce Highway approach into town, upstream of the first Mulgrave River road bridge; this is not a claim about the modern A1 bypass or exact alignment. Historic context: Mulgrave Mill began c. 1896/1897; the year shown is approximate context, not a precise photo date.
Goondi Mill and the steamer Palmer, Johnstone River
Mapped place
CSR’s Goondi sugar mill on the Johnstone River near Innisfail stood on the high bank, its mill buildings and tall chimney overlooking the water. Here the steamer Palmer lies at Goondi with lighters and barges—the Mosquito Fleet that moved sugar and other cargo by river before roads dominated. The print is captioned “THE PALMER AT GOONDI” / “Mills of C.S.R. Co. The ‘Palmer’ Shipping business.” Goondi first crushed in 1885; the mill closed in 1987. The photograph’s precise date is not recorded; 1885 is historical context, not a claimed photo date. This is a historic mill site, not a working mill today.
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