Glassford Creek Smelter Sites

Glassford Creek Smelter Sites are the heritage-listed remains of a former smelter at Glassford State Forest, off Many Peaks Road, Many Peaks, Gladstone Region, Queensland, Australia. It was built. It is also known as Glassford Creek Copper Smelters. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 4 July 2006.HistoryThe Glassford Creek copper lode was discovered in 1893. Initially it was mined for silver then in 1896 for gold and subsequently for copper. The two most important lodes on the Glassford field were the Blue Bag Mine in the north and the Lady Inez Mine in the south. Practically all production on the field came from these two lodes with the Blue Bag Mine the major producer.In 1897, a ten-head battery was erected at Glassford Creek. This led to a total of 560 tons of ore being mined for a return of 166 ounces of gold. When copper sulphides soured the amalgamating tables crushing was discontinued and prospecting reverted to copper. An 1897 plan suggests that the gold battery was located within the vicinity of the later copper smelters.In 1900, the Boompa Copper Company made plans to erect reverberatory smelters. When the reverberatory furnaces were completed in 1903 it appears that smelting commenced and continued through to 1908. Water-jacket furnaces were built but do not appear to have been completed until 1906. The mined ore was put through a rock-breaker and over shaker tables where it was handpicked prior to going to the smelter.The Boompa Copper Company went into liquidation in 1908, and in 1915 the water-jacket smelter was dismantled. Residues in the bases of the furnaces were leased out with 8 tons of copper matte being recovered. The amount of matte recovered in this salvage operation indicates that the methods implemented by the company were inefficient and that the smelters were either ineffectively managed or poorly constructed. The salvage of the matte resulted in a yield of 1 ton 11 cwt of copper, 80 ounces of gold and 113 ounces of silver. This salvage operation was carried out in conjunction with similar work at the Mount Hector smelter, which suggests that the Glassford Creek and Mount Hector mines had a common leaseholder at this time.