Address & Contact
12-8 Raven St
Ravenswood QLD 4816
Phone: 07 4770 2047
Email: mhanc03@yahoo.com.au
Web: N/A
Open 11-1pm daily. The
Ravenswood Court House was built in 1884 to replace a previous building destroyed in a cyclone earlier that year and quickly became the hub of the gold mining town. Here mining claims were registered, applications for exemptions from work regulations heard and all manner of disputes settled – all the formal business of mining was conducted here. From 1890-1912 the best known of the
Ravenswood Wardens - William George Kelly Cusack - presided over the court house. Warden Cusack is buried in the
Ravenswood Cemetery, his grave marked by a Celtic Cross.The building was used as a Court House until 1959, then for a further two years by the
Ravenswood Police before falling out of use in 1961. In the late 1960s the building, alongside the police quarters and jail cells, was relocated 70km away to Mt Graham station for use as a
homestead.
In 1987 the
Ravenswood Restoration and Preservation Association and a team of volunteers worked to bring the buildings
home to their original location. The Court House was then set up as a Museum containing many items donated by local families and is used for family histories and to store historical records of
Ravenswood. When the buildings returned to
Ravenswood the original furniture- including the witness block, prisoners enclosure, public gallery seats and judges stand – were discovered stored in the building and the Court House has been restored to its former glory.