Gunpowder

Gunpowder is an outback town and locality in the City of Mount Isa, Queensland, Australia.

Gunpowder is an outback town and locality in the City of Mount Isa, Queensland, Australia. In the 2016 census, Gunpowder had a population of 43 people.

Mount Oxide was discovered by Ernest Henry in 1882. Owing to the remote location, little mining took place until the 1920s.Mount Oxide Mine is located 140 km north of Mount Isa and 40 km north-east of Mount Gordon Mine (formerly known as Gunpowder).The main mining periods were 1927 to 1943 and 1955 to 1960, when the higher grade ore was worked by underground methods with access via an adit; and 1967 to 1971, when the lower-grade envelope and remnants of high-grade ore were bulk mined in an open-cut.Underground mining produced 79,000 tonnes of ore (15.9% Cu) for a yield of 12,500 tonnes of copper, and some 355,000 tonnes of ore averaging 2.5% Cu were treated at the Gunpowder concentration plant in 1970–71. Leaching and precipitation operations in the 1962 to 1965 and 1978 to 1982 periods yielded an additional 1,369 tonnes of copper.Between World War I and World War II an Aboriginal townsite existed on the site named Waggabundi (after the Waggabonga Aboriginal tribe). The abandoned townsite is about 1 km south of the existing open pit.Mount Oxide Mine is now classed as an abandoned mine site as there is no current mining lease or environmental authority in place.Waggaboonyah Dam was built in 1969 for water storage.

Gunpowder State School opened on 27 January 1970. It closed on 24 September 1982 but reopened on 24 January 1991. It closed permanently on 31 December 1999.Legal issues were raised in the mid 1990s over the extent and responsibility for rehabilitation liability for the mine site. The operators of the site who caused the mining disturbances no longer exist as corporate entities.In the 2016 census, Gunpowder had a population of 43 people.