Mount Mulligan
Old mining town which is now nothing more than a ghost town.
Now nothing more than a ghost town with a few buildings and remnants recalling times past, Mount Mulligan is an old mining town located 385 m above sea-level on a dirt road some 50 km north of the tiny settlement of Dimbulah - on the road from Mareeba to Chillagoe.

The mountain was discovered by James Venture Mulligan (see Mount Molloy for biographical details) who explored and named the area in 1874. At the time there was little interest in the area as all attention was focused on the rich gold deposits on the Palmer River.

In 1910 coalmining started at Mount Mulligan. A new mining town was built and in 1914 a branch line from Dimbulah was established. The town prospered until 19 September 1921 when an underground explosion killed 75 miners. At the time this accounted for every miner working in the mine. They are all buried in the local cemetery. It was one of Australia's worst mining disasters and is still the worst to have occurred in Queensland.

The mine was closed down but the following year it was reopened and in 1923 the Queensland government acquired it from the operators. It functioned until 1957 although after the war it was heavily subsidised. The mine's final demise occurred with the completion of the Tully Falls Hydro-Electricity Scheme. Soon after the town was sold and most of the buildings were removed.