Mungana's Shit and Scatter Hotel

The group of tried friends sat about the campfire to unwind after a hard day spent out in the Chillagoe heat and dust exploring the long abandon site of the old Girofla village.  Little is left now, with more then one hundred years having past since the township disappeared into history.  Its residence having moved the few hundred metres down the railway line into the new town of Mungana when that mining town boomed during the early years of the twentieth century leaving only a little rusting metal and broken glass to mark the site of the old village.  As the light of the campfire dimmed and the cold beer eased the discomfort of sore feet and sun burnt faces, Chillagokid spoke of the old days when the great Girofla mine and its nearby smelter promised bright days ahead for the little community.  All gone now like the eccentrically named 'Shit and Scatter Hotel' at whose bar none alive today would be able to recall having quenched their thirst.  Yankee Dove looked up from the flames, 'What a strange name for a hotel'.  'Oh there, I can fill you in on that' said Farnortherner, 'a tragic tale, that one'.

The shanty hotel was originally named the Cosmopolitan Hotel and was owned by one, Mr McGillicuddy but its unofficial name stuck after the events of the evening of the 6th November 1901.  About 11 o'clock that night, a shy servant girl named Hannah Tracey was gunned down by the morose coward, Richard Henderson.  It appeared to be a miserable case of revenge on part of Henderson because the girl refused to comply with a request he had made of her.  The twenty year old Hannah, known as Annie, had come out to Australia from County Killkenny, Ireland and was working at the hotel as a domestic servant.  A couple of evening earlier, Herderson had asked for a crib but she knew he wasn't going on the night shift and she told him he did not require it.  The six foot tall Henderson, who was known to be prone to take offence without cause became adusive, so much so that he hurt her feelings and she retired to her room weeping and another servant girl finished cutting the men's lunches.  Henderson was turned away by Mr Atherton and nothing more was thought of the incident.

Then on the Wednesday night, he again approached the girl while she was filling the tea cans of the men going on shift and asked for a crib.  Annie said 'you don't want to go to work'.  A young fellow named Evenden took his can from the girl and move to leave, at the same time Annie turned away, when Henderson stepped in front of her and at point blank range, fired a revolver hitting her in the right breast.  Evenden was in the passage and seeing what occurred, went for Henderson and hitting him on the jaw staggered him but recovering himself, Henderson covered Evenden with the revolver.  Fortunately the weapon misfired and Evenden got out of danger.  A group of men from the dining-room carried Annie inside and Constable Hoy quickly appeared and asked the Chinese cook where Henderson was.  The constable and a man named Myers went after him but Henderson was pointing his gun at the two and told them to keep back.  Hoy left to fetch his firearms and Myers watched Henderson but lost him about Lindsay's building.  A party of six men then went along the rail line for a mile searching the camps but could not find him.

When Henderson next appeared he was about fifty metres from the hotel and walking straight up to the front clicking his revolver.  Someone called upon him to put up his hands.  He replied, 'I am going to do it now', and lifted up the gun and shot himself in the head.  Simultaneously another shot rang out from the opposite side of the street hit him in the thigh, fire by a man named Bert Roberts who thought Henderson was going to fire at him when he put up the revolver to shoot himself.  Henderson fell and the crowd rushed him.  He died twenty minutes later where he fell while all round him, leaning on rifles, stood his pursuers, watching him.  The following day, his body was encased in a rough board coffin and buried without ceremony.  As for the poor victim, Annie suffered for six days before passing away in the presence of her brother who had rushed up from the Mulgrave railway where he had been working as a navvy on its construction.  She was engaged to be married to a miner named Thomas Stewart and the men of the town raised 60 pounds for them but after her death they refused to have her buried in the same cemetery as Henderson.  They used the money to organize a train to take Annie and 120 of the towns' folk into Chillagoe to bury her there and paid for a headstone.  And the name of the hotel, that night it was said everyone in the corrugated-iron walled hotel when the shot was fired 'shit themselves and scattered into the darkness'.  So eventually became the name of the establishment, the Shit and Scatter Hotel of old Girofla.
   

The site of the old hotel today           Hannah Tracey's grave          The Shit and Scatter Hotel

Eacham Historical Society

At a recent meeting of the Society, a long and lively discussion was held concerning the circumstance of the great flood of 1967 and its local effects.  It was decided to begin a project to collect articles, memoirs and photos of the big floods that has inundated the tablelands.  The group held a Sunday fieldtrip down to Koomboolooba dam which started with a visit to the little museum at the Ravenshoe Visitors Centre and the Jidabal Cultural Centre with a later stop at the Tully Falls Lookout before a picnic lunch at the dam.  To ease the storage problem at the Centre in Malanda, Ed looked into building some high shelving which is progressing well.  The Society has also published a number of history bulletins on Mr James McCabe's story of his time teaching at the Beatrice River School during the mid 1920's and the difficulty he had relating to the bush people and the harsh damp environment.  The little competition been run on the group's Facebook site has attracted a lot of interest and has shown the members just how popular this site has become.

Tobacco Industry book

Historian Mrs Marjorie Gilmore and her co-author Mr Bob Veness have produced a wonderful study of our local tobacco industry with the recent publication of their 326-page book, 'Smoke and Mirrors; The rise and fall of the North Queensland Tobacco Industry'.  I joined the large crowd of some three hundred people who attended the recent launch of this book at the Mareeba Heritage Centre with Mr Ron Blundell as MC.  Old industry stalwart Mr Remze Mulla, who spent his whole life involved with the tobacco officially launched what he believed to be one of the most comprehensive book ever written on the topic.  This large book covers much of the social history of the industry from its first days in 1929 through to the last crop grown in 2004.  Unfortunately, it concentrates on the Mareeba and Dimbulah districts and scarcely touch on the many other areas where tobacco growing was started such as at Mary Farms and Watsonville.  The staff of the Centre had organized a fantastic event with great catering and the one thousand copies of the book that was printed were almost sold out at the launch, so if you want to buy a copy, you may need to wait for the re-print.  This subject holds a special interest for me as my paternal grand-parents tried to start a tobacco farm on Tinaroo Creek Road in the early 1930's but lost everything due to the hardships of the Great Depression.

   

Douglas Shire Historical Society

Having not heard from the Douglas Shire Historical Society for some time, I called in to the Court House Museum in Port Douglas and found their Society doyen, Mr Noel Weare on duty at the front desk.  During a long chat, he brought me up to date with happenings at their group.  They had just completed a project to repaint their museum for which they obtained finance of $6000 and it has left the building looking clean and tidy.  Their Society was also publishing a local history Bulletin again after quite a long break without an editor.  The latest written by Dr Jonathan Richards on the Native Police activity in the Port Douglas dictrict.  Other projects they are undertaking entail collecting information on the dozens of hotels that have operated in the district over the years and the renewal of their aging internet website.  But like all the Societies, they too are struggling with the problem of finding new and younger energetic members and with the eternal problem of finance.

North Qld Mining History Group

On a wet Saturday afternoon recently, more than twenty mining history enthusiast gathered in the research rooms of the Mining Centre in Herberton to formally constitute the new North Queensland Mining History Association inc. (NQMHAI)  This new organization aims to record the history of the North's mineral fields, mines, mills and smelters, prospectors and miners, starting with the tin and goldfields on and about the Tablelands.  After the business of starting the group was dealt with, Mr Ivan Searston gave an excellent presentation on his research into how the histories got the site of the original tin discovery by James V Mulligan at Herberton so wrong beginning with Robert Logan Jack's misreading of Mulligan's journal.  Mr Donald Walker who was named the inaugural patron of the group, then spoke on how he came to be in Herberton as a young man and gave a brief description of the tin industry from that time to its collapse in the mid 1980's.  For more information on the association, contact the Herberton Mining Centre.

Cairns Historical Society

Things have slow-up at Cairns due to the planed renovation to the School of Arts building which is to take place later in the year.  As this will cause great upheaval as the Society will have to vacate the building, the Management Committee has taken the rather extreme course of suspending all general meeting until further notice.  Monthly bulletins and the newsletters will still be published as normal but the gift shop is to be closed down.  The Management Committee will still meet to attend to the general business of the group although it could be well into 2015 before the Society gets back to normal.  Until then Les will organizes informal monthy get-togethers for the active members on the old meeting nights to keep everyone up to date on happenings within the group.

THeN Meeting

The last meeting of the Tablelands Heritage Network (THeN) was held recently at the Atherton Chinatown complex with Rhonda Micola as the host.  A large crowd from the district's heritage groups and information and visitor centres attended with the day beginnng with a behind the scenes tour of the Hou Wang Temple.  Local archaeologist Mr Gordon Grimwade gave the gathering a presentation on the heritage interpretation systems at the site which is becoming very professional.  The next meeting will be held up at the Mountains Institute in Ravenshoe on Friday 14 June.