Kuridala, was a copper and gold mining town 70 km south of
Cloncurry in western Queensland. Situated in the
Cloncurry Shire,
Kuridala was in the northern foothills of the Selwyn Range where numerous ore deposits were discovered as early as 1884.
The town was first known as Gulatten, then Hampden, then Friezland. but anti-German sentiment during World War I prompted a further change.
Kuridala was chosen, an Aboriginal word thought to describe the eagle hawk.
In 1916 it became known as
Kuridala
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The Hampden copper deposit (the future site of
Kuridala) was acquired by a
Melbourne syndicate in 1897, and by 1905 world copper prices had climbed sufficiently to warrant exploitation. The railway system reached
Cloncurry in 1908 and a 70 km southwards extension was needed to carry Hampden's copper to
Cloncurry. Funds from the mining syndicate and the government paid for the extension line, which opened in 1910.
As early as 1913 Friezland had 1500 people. There were six hotels, an ice works, a printery, several storekeepers and tradespeople, a hospital, Anglican and Presbyterian churches, a school of arts and a primary school. Wartime demand kept world copper prices elevated and the town buoyant, reaching its zenith in 1918. At this time
Kuridala's school had a daily attendance of 280 children. Chinese market gardeners kept the town supplied with fresh victuals, while the smelters worked around the clock, lighting up the night sky.
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In 1920 world copper prices collapsed, extinguishing the smelters and
Kuridala's prospects. By the following year the
population had halved to 774. Pugh's Directory records that five hotels were still afloat in 1924, but decline was unabated and the end inevitable. The hospital, picture theatre and court house were pulled down and erected in the new mining town at
Mount Isa, the ice works following close behind. The 1933 cencus counted just 64 people in 1933, mostly tributors who mined high-grade ore.
The train line, extended south to Selwyn and serviced by optimistic spurs to promising deposits, was lightly trafficked until closure in 1961.
Kuridala's surviving features are a
cemetery and the remains of a smelter. According to Queensland Archives the school closed in 1935.
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