Mount Isa, one of Queensland's longest-running mining towns, has this week turned 100.
Founded on the land of the Kalkadoon people, it is renowned for mine stacks that rise from red-dirt country at the foothills of the Selwyn Ranges.
But as locals celebrate a rich and varied past, many look toward a future where the town's lifeblood is sustained by more than mining.
A chance discovery
On February 22, 1923, John Campbell Miles and his horses stopped to camp during a journey through the arid Queensland outback to the Northern Territory.
Curiosity led the prospector to a particularly large outcrop where he knapped off a piece of rock that, according to his writings, he instantly recognised "contained mineral from its weight".
After sending samples to an assayer in Cloncurry, it was confirmed the earth contained significant lead-silver deposits.
Mr Miles pegged three areas, establishing 42 hectares around the original outcrops.
"By about September, the word had spread and I guess you could say a 'lead rush' ensued," Mount Isa historian and archivist Barry Merrick said.
By early 1924, there were about 200 people with mining leases in the area and in January Mount Isa Mines was formed.
At about this time, mine owners began investing in the accommodation of workers and their families, transforming Mount Isa from a camping ground of shanties and tin-sheet hovels into more established houses.
Did you know? There were two theories about how Mount Isa was named. Mount Isa Mines endorsed the belief that John Campbell Miles named Mount Isa after the Western Australian goldfield, Mount Ida. But Mr Miles' niece, Isabel Tracey, believed her uncle named the mine after her.
Accident triggers launch of RFDS
On August 1, 1927, three miners were involved in an accident and fell into a shaft.
One was so badly injured it was decided he would not survive the rickety journey by road to the Cloncurry hospital hundreds of kilometres away.
"It just so happened, the Qantas air mail plane was sitting in Cloncurry at the time," Mr Merrick said.
"So they hired the plane and evacuated the patient to Cloncurry. On their way back, Dr Simpson said the future of medical evacuations had been made."
A year later, the Australian Inland Mission Aerial Medical Service (today's Royal Flying Doctor Service) was established in Cloncurry.
Pioneering teachers
Although miners made up the majority of Mount Isa's earliest population, teachers were also among its pioneering residents.
The original educators were a stalwart breed, having to endure decrepit living and teaching environments void of the most basic facilities, not to mention the arduous journey out to the north-west.
According to the book entitled Whispers Through the Spinifex by local historian Kim-Maree Burton, a teacher would travel by steamboat to Townsville, ride for more than 400 kilometres by train from Richmond, then board the Cobb and Co coach for a two-day journey to Cloncurry and onto Mount Isa.
Charlie Leonard, a blacksmith from Cloncurry, built the town's first school in 1924 with an iron roof, earthen floor, and sapling trees for walls.
A multicultural epicentre
Known for its mining roots and rich agricultural industry — culminating in the largest rodeo in the southern hemisphere — Mount Isa's cultural diversity is often overlooked in the history books.
According to local historians, Mount Isa had the largest Finnish community in Australia during the 1930s.
Only a few hundred Finns were living in Mount Isa at the time, but by the early 1970s about 1,600 had travelled across the world to work in the mines.
Pastor Lauri Iso-aho told the ABC in 2015 that in Finland "it was very hard to find work, so in 1967 we came to Australia".
"When we came … the first thing that we saw was a lady on horseback, and we thought this is truly a western movie town," he said.
There are about 50 different nationalities making up the near-20,000 strong population in Mount Isa today.
They are celebrated at the Mount Isa Multicultural Festival every year.
More than mining
Some of the town's younger residents are pondering the next 100 years and hope Mount Isa will become a thriving hub for its other sectors
"We have so much here. We have strong sporting talent, we're the health centre of this region, we have teachers and agriculture," said 17-year-old Good Shepherd Catholic College student Olivia Lee.
"I'd like to see Mount Isa more invested in those areas."
Fellow student Michael Kuskopf said Mount Isa's history proved it was not "just a mining town".
"It's more than that and it's not just the mines that brings in the people," he said.
"We have so much more to offer."
