Charters Towers Post Office facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Charters Towers Post Office |
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Charter Towers Post Office, 1910
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| Location | 17 Gill Street, Charters TowersCity, Charters Towers, Charters Towers Region, Queensland, Australia |
| Official name: Charters Towers Post Office | |
| Type | Listed place (Historic) |
| Designated | 8 November 2011 |
| Reference no. | 105523 |
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The Charters Towers Post Office is a very old and important building. It is located at 17 Gill Street in Charters Towers, Queensland, Australia. This historic post office is listed on the Commonwealth Heritage List. This means it is a special building protected for its history and unique design. It has been a key part of the town's communication for over 110 years.
Contents
How Charters Towers Post Office Began
The story of the Charters Towers Post Office starts with gold! Gold was found near Towers Hill in 1871. Soon after, in 1872, a postal service was set up.
Charters Towers grew very quickly because of the gold rush. It became a municipality in 1877 and a city in 1909. At one point, about 30,000 miners and business people moved there.
The Charters Towers area produced huge amounts of gold. By 1898, it was making over 320,000 ounces of gold each year. This made it the richest major goldfield in Australia.
However, gold production started to slow down in the early 1900s. Eventually, gold mining in Charters Towers mostly stopped by 1917.
Building the Post Office
The first post office building was built between 1879 and 1880. This was during the town's busiest growth period.
The building you see today replaced the first one in 1892. It was a large, two-storey building. The ground floor was for postal and telegraph services. The upper floor had living quarters for the postmaster.
A tall clock tower was added to the building in 1898. More changes and repairs happened in the early 1900s. Charters Towers was once the second-largest city in Queensland because of the gold boom. Today, it still has many beautiful old buildings.
The post office was designed by architects from the Queensland Government Architect's office. Important architects like Thomas Pye and possibly John Smith Murdoch worked on it.
What the Post Office Looks Like
The Charters Towers Post Office is at 17 Gill Street, right on the corner of Bow Street. It's a two-storey building made of stone or brick. The public areas are on the ground floor. The upper floor, which used to be apartments, is now used as office space.
The post office is in a very noticeable spot. It's in the middle of Charters Towers' historic area. This area has many buildings from the late Victorian and Federation times.
The building originally had a balanced design. It had a double-storey verandah facing Gill Street. The roof was made of corrugated iron. The upper verandah had a triangular top part called a pediment. It also had fancy cast iron decorations.
Changes Over Time
The building changed quite a bit between 1892 and 1898. The clock tower was added, making the front look less balanced. These changes brought in a new style called Baroque Revivalism.
The five-storey clock tower was finished in 1898. You can see "A1898D" (meaning Anno Domini 1898) written on it. The tower has different sections, including the clock face and a lookout area at the top. It has a tall, pointed roof with a weather-vane.
The building has also had smaller additions at the back. In the early 1900s, more changes were made inside and at the rear. Later, in the 1920s or 1930s, space was added for telephone exchange equipment. Some sheds were built in 1937 for the telephone network.
By the mid-1990s, the inside of the post office was updated. It got a new retail area, lunch room, and offices. While the inside changed, the outside of the building mostly kept its 1898 look. The upstairs living area also still has its own entrance.
Why the Post Office is Important
The Charters Towers Post Office was added to the Commonwealth Heritage List on 8 November 2011. This means it's recognized as a very important building for several reasons:
Its History and Purpose
The Charters Towers Post Office was built and expanded in the 1890s. It has been providing postal services for over 110 years. Its large size and grand design show how rich and successful Charters Towers was during the gold rush in the late 1800s.
The main postal building and the clock tower, built between 1892 and 1898, are very important parts of its history. Additions made in 1906-07 are also significant.
Its Unique Design
The Charters Towers Post Office is a great example of a post office and telegraph office with living quarters. It combines different styles from the late Victorian period and an early style called Baroque Revival. It also has some details from the Queen Anne Free Style.
The building originally had postal and telegraph services on the ground floor. The first floor was for living. The clock tower and other big changes were added in 1898. Later, in the 1920s or 1930s, it expanded to include telephone services. Even with all these changes, the outside of the building still looks much like it did in 1898.
The post office's design is a mix of late Victorian and Baroque Revival styles. The strong changes made in 1898, like the entry porch and clock tower, were an early example of the grand Baroque Revival style in Australia. This was done by a very important architect, Alfred Barton Brady, who was the Queensland Government Architect.
Its Beautiful Look
The Charters Towers Post Office is a very noticeable public building from the late 1800s. It has a landmark quality and adds a lot to the historic feel of Gill Street. People value its prominent location on the corner. They also admire its five-storey corner clock tower, its grand entrance with columns, and its verandah with decorative supports. The roof also has a striking octagonal lantern with a pointed metal roof and a weather-vane.
Its Value to the Community
The Charters Towers Post Office is very important to the people of Charters Towers and the surrounding area. It is a well-known and valued public building. It reminds people of the city's gold prosperity in the 1800s. It has also been the main place for postal services and communication in the town for over 120 years.
- GS Warmington and AC Ward, Australia Post Survey of Historic Properties in Queensland, Volume 1, 1991
- Commonwealth Heritage List, ID 105523
- Register of the National Estate, ID 8931 & 8937
- Don Watson and Judith McKay, Queensland Architects of the Nineteenth Century, Brisbane: Museum of Queensland, 1994.
- Chesterton Corporate Property Advisors, CISD Property Valuation Report, June 2005.
- Historical notes at Qld Govt Natural Water & resources website
