Stock Exchange building, Charters Towers

The town’s fascinating history has been restored and revived by an exciting Queensland Heritage Trails Network project, Charters Towers – Ghosts of Gold. Once dubbed “The World” in 1871 due to its cosmopolitan nature, the magnificent civic buildings of the era, including the Stock Exchange, have been beautifully preserved within an historic mining precinct. The nationally-significant Venus Battery Mill site has also been conserved.

Charters Towers – Ghosts of Gold is a "whole of town" experience for visitors.

The Stock Exchange
Designed by Sydney architect, Mark Day and built by Sandbrook Brothers of Sydney in 1888 as a prestigious shop and office arcade for local civic leader and business Alexander Malcolm, the Royal Arcade housed the Charters Towers Stock Exchange from 1890. It was Australia’s only regional stock exchange, and needed to raise capital for the deep reef mines throughout the region. The Stock Exchange building was hooked into the world via telegraph from 1890, with three calls a day five days a week.

The exchange is a great open thoroughfare and it is easy to imagine the stockbrokers busy at work in their offices, which have now been converted into shops. There is also an excellent assay mining museum here.

Towers Hill
Gold was first discovered in Charters Towers in December, 1871 by Aboriginal stockman Jupiter on this rugged site. Today, the pink and grey grandiorite rises 420 metres above the plain, dominating the skyline behind the town. Since the discovery of gold, the hill’s three peaks have been subject to much use, including as a mining site. The early telegraph route to Cardwell passed overhead, and the valley below was used for ordinance storage during World War II.

The Towers Hill lookout was enhanced with interpretive displays, so visitors can learn of more of the region’s colourful past while taking in the panoramic views of Charters Towers to the coast.

The Venus Gold Battery
On the outskirts of town, the Venus Gold Battery offers an insight into an amazing real-life gold rush in the late 19th century. The battery is of national cultural significance as the largest surviving battery relic in Australia and oldest surviving battery in Queensland. Constructed in 1872, it was a public or custom mill in its heyday and became a State battery in 1919 to provide ore crushing facilities for small miners long after other mills had closed. It ceased commercial operations in the early 70s, after a century of service.

New interpretive displays present the process of extracting gold from quartz with interactive characters telling the stories of not only how the battery worked, but also of their working lives and times and events of Charters Towers.