page_title: Tomahawk Creek Huts
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Tomahawk Creek Huts / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Tomahawk Creek Huts - Camp David (2011)
context_page_description: Tomahawk Creek Huts is a heritage-listed group of huts at Argyll near Rubyvale, Central Highlands Region, Queensland, Australia. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 16 October 2008.
context_section_description: Tomahawk Creek Fossicking Area, about 25 kilometres (16 mi) west of Rubyvale, north-west of Emerald, is the most remote part of the Central Queensland Gemfields. It is about 2,340 hectares (5,800 acres) in area, excised from a Grazing Homestead Perpetual Lease. The first huts were built in the 1960s on mining claims or under Miner's Right but in 1986 under the Mining (Fossicking) Act 1985 the area was designated a fossicking area and the huts made illegal and their residents squatters.
  Fossicking areas are areas where the government has negotiated access for fossickers in advance and no commercial mining is allowed. On designated fossicking lands the government has negotiated the land owners' permission in advance but some commercial mining under the appropriate legislation may occur. There are 11 designated fossicking areas in Queensland, five of them in Central Queensland, where camping with a permit for a maximum period of three months is allowed. No camping is permitted on the fossicking areas in south-east and north Queensland and there are no known huts in these areas. On the fossicking lands in western and south-west Queensland, out from Winton and Quilpie, camping with a permit is allowed for periods up to three months. There are also "general permission areas" where special conditions may apply, including Swipers Gully fossicking area near Stanthorpe, where camping is not permitted. .
  Houses and huts in the several townships on The Gemfields, but not at Tomahawk Creek, are now on regular titles and provided with town facilities. Tomahawk Creek is the largest fossicking area in the Gemfields.
  The first sapphires were found on The Central Queensland Gemfields in 1870 and attracted hand miners. Archibald John Richardson, Government Surveyor and his partner Frank Fisher, erected a treatment plant but profit eluded them. In the 1890s interest from the nobility of the Russian Empire and from German buyers stimulated the market for sapphires and a period of prosperity ensued, but these markets were lost with the onset of World War I and the Russian Revolution. Government assistance to the market kept miners on the field, with limited recovery in the 1940s. Through the years gemstone miners have lived in tents, and built huts of tin and poles, recycled materials and caravans. Small townships grew at Anakie, Sapphire, Rubyvale and The Willows.
  In the 1960s the price of gems increased and more tourists and gem collectors worked the fields. In 1965 machine mining began, with the first use of a bulldozer on the Gemfields. Thai buyers began visiting the fields in 1971 and output increased as heavy machinery mining became dominant, in competition and conflict with hand miners for whom some richer areas were reserved. In the late 1970s activity slowed but a core of machinery miners and hand miners remained. The Gemfields become a popular holiday destination for campers and caravanners during the cooler months.
  Fossicking at Tomahawk Creek was active in the late 1960s, when the earliest extant huts were built, on occupation under Mining Claims, Leases and Permits to Occupy. Most occupants stayed during winter and holiday periods; there were 13 non-permanent huts and six permanent huts in January 2007. Most of the huts began as caravans to which annexes and lean-tos were added, with walls and roofs of galvanised iron and "billy boulders" (large irregular-shaped stones of hard siliceous material) and other light materials, on frames of poles. Toilets and showers usually were built some metres distant from the hut.
  Designated as a fossicking area, and remote from the townships, Tomahawk Creek has not been machine mined but has been explored and mined by hand miners and tourists. The last Mining Claim expired about 1991, when two occupants applied for Permits to Occupy. There is no legal tenure of the other huts.
  The hut known as "Tomahawk Heights" is on lot 9. It is a structure basically of galvanised iron, built after 1969 on a former camp site. There are four occasional occupants.
  The most substantial hut in the area was built b
caption: "Camp David" hut, 2011
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