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Canoona, QLD

Gold was discovered at the Canoona sheep station, situated north of Gladstone (near Rockhampton in northern Queensland), in 1857. The Canoona rush is significant as the first in Queensland. It triggered a new phase of the gold seeking era, following on from the New South Wales and Victorian rushes. Gold mining dominated the mining industry of Queensland during the nineteenth century and had major economic and social impacts on the state. It also facilitated other mineral discoveries that were critical to the continuing economic development of the state during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; from 1873 to 1906, Queensland's gold and metals exports exceeded those of wool.

Keir Reeves

References
Blainey, Geoffrey, The rush that never ended: a history of Australian mining, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1963. Details