- Drovers Camp – The Drovers Camp is the place to start when it comes to Camooweal and the droving history. Take a FREE guided tour through the interpretive and historical displays and artwork
- Historical Cemetery – Pick a cemetery guide up from the Visitor Information Centre at the Drovers Camp
- .Cairn “Those Responsible” – This cairn was erected to commemorate those American troops stationed in Camooweal during World War II who laid the first tarmac road from Mount Isa to Camooweal and beyond. The cairn sits in the position where the army camp had set up when building the Barkly Highway.
- Town Bore – The first sub-artesian basin bore was drilled in 1897, thirteen years after the town was established and seven years after the first report was proposed to the House of Parliament. The 1890 report was rejected and another report was submitted suggestion they test the area for artesian water. This second report was accepted however by 1895 no progress had been made and was abandoned in 1895. The bore was run by a steam engine so two to three casual pumpers were employed to fuel the fire. Once pumped, the water was held in what was known then as earth tanks or ‘Turkey’s Nests’ which were small dams; the water was then taken by tanks to the hotels by a goat drawn cart, by dray or later by trucks. The water wasn’t reticulated until the 1930’s.There have been many other bores drilled since then to supply Camooweal’s water. Interesting fact: Raid Wardens used the tank towers to watch for enemy aircraft while stationed here in WWII.
- Post Masters House – This house was originally the Post Masters house and was built around 1959. George Adams was the first postmaster to live in the residence however it is now a private residence. The post master now lives in the building behind the current post office which incidentally use to be the old Telecom Building.
- Post Office -The first receiving office was on Rocklands Station as early as 1883. Prior to that you had to travel to Burketown to pick it up! The first post office service in Camooweal began in 1885 and M. Grogan was first post master. It wasn’t until 1891 that the first Post Office and residence was built and was a small wooden building that stood on the block that the Driveway Cabins now sit on. Mail was brought in by plane twice a week. The current post office was built in 1949 and the post master now makes a daily run to Mount Isa and a twice week run to all the outlying stations to collect and deliver the mail.
- Cronin Park Race Course- Seven years after Camooweal became a settlement the first registered (NQ Racing Ass.) race meeting was held on October 1889; it held eleven races at £200 prize money. Aboriginal jockeys were trained in the early days and sometimes the best horses were kept for the “black boys” race, as they were called. In the early days the race club was the social hub with the likes of pioneering families such as the Beaumont’s, Miller’s, Finlay’s, Pedwell’s and of course the Cronin’s seen at the races. Since then Camooweal has held a race meeting every year in August. It also holds the yearly cricket match competition in April and the campdraft & rodeo in June. The park was named after Camooweal’s first settlement family.
- Post Office Hotel- the last remaining hotel in Camooweal (there was originally three) the Post Office Hotel was first licensed to Alfred Levi Vernon in 1906. From 1911 only two pubs remained the Post Office Hotel and the Landsborough. The Landsborough burnt down in the 60’s leaving Camooweal a one-pub town.
- Methodist Inland Mission – There is no record of when this church/hall was built however in 1929 the minister was Captain Howard Kettle. Methodist Inland Mission ministers use to come to Camooweal frequently to perform services and today there is still a minister who performs services on a regular basis for the Indigenous community.
- Old Bridge – Take a walk down to the old bridge on the thin bitumen road that once was The Barkly Highway. This road through Camooweal to the Northern Territory was the inland defence route for World War 2 and was built by army engineers and carried over 1000 vehicles a day. The old bridge was part of this original construction however during times of flood the bridge would be under water and left the town of Camooweal isolated so a new bridge was built in 2002. The old bridge also shows how narrow the road to Mount Isa from Camooweal was before the upgrade in 2009.
- Cairn for new bridge & Buffaroo – Here stands the cairn erected when the new bridge was built in 2002. Also the beloved Buffaroo stands proudly to greet travellers into the BP Station. The story goes that it was born of a rogue bull buffalo the Mother was a ‘Big Red Roo’ with a sense of adventure! It ran out of Darwin in the bombing of ’42 and was forced to live the life of a hermit. Eyes of the old timers at Camooweal shine when asked about the elusive mythical Buffaroo.
- The BOND store- The store next to Freckleton’s (BP side) use to be known as the BOND store. This store has always held a two gallon licence and in the very early days of Camooweal Jamaican Rum in earthenware demijohns in wicker containers came in by boat and team to be bottled under BOND and sold in the store. It held this licence until 2009 when it closed down. This building later became the Barkly Tableland Heritage Centre museum but sadly closed in 2009
- Freckleton’s General Store – This building was originally called Affleck & Dunn until purchased by Paddy Synnott in 1895 from Dunn when it was called Affleck, Synnott & Co. It grew into a large business circulating its own currency of 1.O.U.’s called “shin plasters”. In 1901 it became Synnott & Co when Affleck sold out. Later it was known as Synnott, Murray & Scholes until Jim Synnott sold it to Joe Freckleton Snr in 1943 when it became Freckleton’s General Store until 2009 when after the death of Joe Freckleton Jnr the family was unable to keep it going. It is still owned by the Freckleton family to this day but no plans are in its future. No matter what the name, it was always a provider of goods for the drovers passing through town.
- St Therese Catholic Church – The church was built in 1961 by Bill McCarthy and consecrated by Bishop Ryan. The conditions were bad in the early days of the pioneering families with the heat, no electricity or running water and the roads just dirt tracks that Priests and Ministers only visited Camooweal a couple of times a year if they were lucky. Services, when they did happen, were conducted in the old Court House and later at the Shire Hall. Still today a priest comes out from Mount Isa and runs a service once a month.
- Humpy-Stan Fowler owned this land and obtained the old humpy in 1945 from the army camp that was outside of Camooweal during the war years to use as a shed. He also had one on another block behind the Post Office Hotel however that has since been pulled down.
- Painting – This mural was commissioned by Lorna Freckleton to commemorate her father Joseph Freckleton Snr. There is a plague on the wall next to the mural that tells the story of the depiction. The building itself, was bought off the Army who were stationed here in 1945. It was the Army’s old dining room.
- Garage – This garage is the original garage built in the pioneering days of Camooweal. Joseph Freckleton Snr started the garage which was originally used to service and refuel the aircraft that came into the Cafnooweal aerodrome. In later years it also catered for the automobile as they became popular.
- Old Ice Works – This was originally owned by Laura Beaumont who lived in the house and had a cafe. She sold it to drovers Clammy Cleary, Clarry Pankhurst, and Jack Charleton who turned it into a butcher shop and ice works.
- State School – Emily Conroy (later McMahon) settled in Camooweal in 1890 and immediately began teaching from her home to a dozen or so children. By 1892 there were too many children for Mrs Conroy to have at her home and a committee was formed and letters were written to have a proper school established in Camooweal. The first provisional school was established in June 1893. It was a 22ft X 14ft space and held 28 students. 1928 saw the old Mt. Guthbert State School moved to town as the original building had become too small. In the sixties, two model school buildings and a modular building were erected and opened. Today the school has two multi-age classes, with enrolment currently averaging between 40 and 45 students from Prep to Year 7. 95% of those students are Indigenous.
- Police Station – The first police station was built in 1886 and comprised of a galvanised hut of two rooms; 15 x 12 feet. II had stud r afters made of bush sapling perforated by the borer and walls and roof (which leaked) of iron. Flooring was goods cases nailed on saplings and doors were also made of goods cases. The so-called windows didn’t have any pane of glass and only a blanket nailed above the opening to keep the weather out. The water tank was an old beer barrel; a far cry from today. A cell was added in 1887, a new courthouse was built of galvanised steel in 1895; a new cell built in 1907 and a bathroom and kitchen added in 1909. This present Police Station was built in 1969 and the old one was dismantled.
- Shire Hall – In 1923 the council (Camooweal had its own shire then known as Barkly Tableland Shire) were successful in getting a loan of £3000 from state treasury to build the structure and it was repaid in fifteen ears by half yearly instalments of nine pounds, 19 shillings and 3 pence. They built the hall in 1924 and in 1935 it was extended for a cost of £598. The town hall was commandeered by American troops in WWII and used as a military hospital. The building was renovated and heritage listed in 1984 and houses a display of historic photographs and two large plagues of local men who served in the two world wars; some made it back, some sadly didn’t See a cairn erected to commemorate the ANZACS as well as William Landsborough’s discovery of the Barkly Tableland in 1861.
- Ellen Finlay Memorial Park – Ellen Finlay was the first white child born in Camooweal. Ellen’s father J.J. (Micky) Cronin is the first settler and store owner of Camooweal and her mother was Kate Cronin. Ellen is buried in the Camooweal cemetery and her grandson still lives in the area.
- Old Picture Theatre – The metal structure on the edge of this property and the concrete slab in front of it is all that remains of the outdoor picture theatre. Though the actual date that films started to be shown here is unknown the last known film shown was “Crocodile Dundee”. The earliest recorded year is 1929 when they showed the movie ‘Wings” a 1927 silent film about World War I fighter pilots (Capt Kettles diary) .The Methodist Amenities Committee of the Methodist Church originally ran the films and Joe Freckleton Jnr was the projectionist. In the 1970’s Joe Freckleton Jnr was indisposed and it looked as if the pictures wouldn’t be shown but Paul Finlay (Ellens Grandson) had run a projector at Nudgee College so was familiar with the gear and ran the pictures in Joe’s absence. The advent of t.v. to the area in 1982 brought the demise to the outdoor picture theatres weekly pictures.
- Hospital & Clinic- The first hospital was an old Telegraph Building from Yelvertoft Station known as the “Cottage Hospital” brought in and built by A.E. Brown in 1912. Prior to that neighbour helped neighbour in an emergency and doctors visited the town infrequently. Mrs Conroy (later McMahon) was the bush nurse, dentist, and mobile midwife travelling by buggy to stations delivering babies. A five bed maternity section was built in 1924. Fire burnt down this building and the current building was built in 1963 however these days the RFDS flies out serious cases to Mount Isa and a weekly outpatient clinic is held here, a nurse is at the clinic five days a week.
- Steam Engine – This old steam engine was the kind long-ago used on station bores and would have been the kind used on the first town bore. See ‘Town Bore’ for more information on operation.
- Aerodrome – The early runway was just a black soil strip but became a well-drained aerodrome and was on the international air route which meant quite a few well-known aviators stopped at Camooweal. Names such as Ross and Keith Smith in 1919; McGinness and Baird (QANTAS) in 1921; Bert Hinkler in 1928; Charles Kingsford Smith refuelled here on his way to England in 1929 and Maude Bonney, the first woman to circumnavigate Australia and to fly solo to England stopped frequently between 1931 and 1938. The aerodrome was also used for mail delivery from 1930 and during WWII the aerodrome runways were extended and sealed and served as an emergency landing site and fuelling stopover. Today it is used primarily for the RFDS.
