Events

Inspired by Leichhardt's reports of good land, George Elphinstone Dalrymple led a private expedition overland from Rockhampton to the area.

Leichhardt's party found "an extensive valley with large lagoons and lakes"; he wrote "Finer stations for the squatter cannot exist." Source: Journal entries of 4–5 May 1845.

Coal-dust explosion at the Mount Mulligan coal mine on 19 September 1921 killed all 75 men on shift, Queensland’s worst mining disaster.

Lang Hancock later described a storm-forced low flight in November 1952 over the Hamersley Range as the moment he recognised the scale of iron-rich cliffs. The account is contested; iron ore was already known in the north-west.