Mitchell
Small township on the edge of the Darling Downs
Located on the Warrego Highway 566 km west of Brisbane and 335 m above sea level, Mitchell is a tiny town on the very edge of the Darling Downs & Maranoa region. Bottle trees are a feature of the main street.

The town was named after the great explorer Sir Thomas Mitchell who travelled through the area in 1845­1846 searching for a route from New South Wales through to Port Essington and eager to find a great river which ran north through the area.

Mitchell left Sydney in December 1845 and by June 1846 he had established a depot on the Maranoa, Warrego and Belyando Rivers. He travelled through the area for nearly twelve months and upon his return to Sydney on 29 December 1846 he announced that the land which lay to the west of the Darling Downs was suitable for grazing. Thus Mitchell did much to encourage the settlement of the region.

Prior to the arrival of Europeans it is thought to have been occupied by the Mandandanji Aborigines.

Cattle duffers Patrick and James Kenniff were arrested south of Mitchell in 1902. The brothers, who already had convictions for stock stealing in northern New South Wales, moved to the Upper Warrego in 1893. In the company of other convicted cattle thieves they began stealing stock from neighbouring stations such as 'Carnarvon'. Both brothers served prison sentences in this period.

The complaints of neighbours led the government to terminate the Kenniffs' lease and establish a police station on the Upper Warrego. Consequently the brothers became more openly belligerent, riding armed throughout the district. They shifted their base across the Great Dividing Range to Lethbridge's Pocket and developed an intense hostility towards the manager of the 'Carnarvon; property, Albert Dahlke.

During Easter 1902 Constable George Doyle left the Upper Warrego police station to arrest the Kenniffs for horse theft. Soon thereafter the burned bodies of Doyle and Albert Dahlke were found. Doyle's Aboriginal tracker asserted that he had heard some shooting and was pursued by the Kenniffs when he approached the location of the bodies. Subsequently a 1000-pound reward was offered and a large police manhunt initiated. Nonetheless it was not until 23 June that the brothers were captured at what is now Arrest Creek, to the south of Mitchell.

There was considerable public sympathy for the brothers, owing to the economic depression, unemployment and drought of the 1890s and to the old resentments between the squatters and cockatoo farmers. However, both men were found guilty of wilful murder. An appeal was launched with publicly raised but the full bench of the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal with only one dissenter who was unconvinced that proof of guilt had been established. Paddy Kenniff was hung in Brisbane on 12 January 1903 but James' death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. The public controversy, stirred by the popular ballads 'The Kenniffs' and 'The Hanging of Paddy Kenniff', gave rise to calls for the abolition of capital punishment in Queensland. James served 12 years in prison and then worked on cattle stations and fossicked before dying of cancer in 1940.

Things to see:  

Museum
There is a pleasant park in the centre of town with picnic facilities and at 48 Edinburgh Street (about 300 m off the Warrego Highway) there is a private museum which specialises in working farm and transport equipment. It has Cobb & Co coaches and an excellent display of working blacksmith's tools.

	Motels
	Berkeley Lodge Motor Inn 20 Cambridge St Mitchell QLD 4465 Telephone: (07) 4623 1666 Rating: ***