Mitchell real estate

The Mandandanji and the Maranoa

The Mandandanji and the Gunggari, both Aboriginal peoples, lived in the Maranoa region before Europeans arrived. Excavations at Mount Moffatt have led to the deduction that Aboriginal people had lived in that area for around 19,500 years. Descendants of those peoples still live in the area and visit it.

The Mandandanji people speak Mandandanji, also known as Mandandanyi, Mandandanjdji and Kogai, an Australian Aboriginal language. Its language region covers land inside the Maranoa Regional Council boundaries, taking in Roma, Yuleba and Surat, then reaching towards Chinchilla and south-west to Mitchell and St George.

The name and the early town

The town takes its name from Sir Thomas Mitchell, who was Surveyor General of New South Wales and explored the area in 1846. Edmund Morey took up the property known as Mitchell Downs in 1862. A flood partly destroyed the original homestead in 1864, and Thomas Close bought the ruins and opened the Mitchell Downs Hotel.

A post office opened at Mitchell Downs on 1 January 1865, and around 1878 its name changed to Mitchell Post Office. Mitchell State School opened as a primary school on 1 April 1876, and the school was expanded to take secondary students in 1961. The town is a service centre for a district of cattle and sheep farming.

Church and school

Bishop Robert Dunne officially opened and blessed the first St Columba's Catholic Church on Saturday 15 November 1884. Monsignor McKenna of Toowoomba opened and blessed a new St Columba's Catholic Church on Sunday 24 April 1938. J.P. Donoghue designed the timber church, which cost £3000 and can seat 350 people.

Coadjutor Bishop Nathaniel Dawes laid the first All Saints' Anglican Church's foundation block on Wednesday 13 November 1889. Bishop William Webber officially opened the church on Tuesday 5 August 1890. It measured 45 by 25 feet, was built from cypress pine at a cost of £274, and could seat 150 people. A brick All Saints' Anglican Church built in 1965 can seat 110 people.

A timber Wesleyan Methodist Church opened in April 1894, cost £200 and seated 80 people. It later served as Mitchell Methodist Church and later still as Mitchell Uniting Church, following amalgamations between denominations. It is now closed and has been converted into a house.

St Patrick's Catholic Primary School dates from 4 November 1923. Long Gully Provisional School, on the road between Mitchell and St George, opened in 1915 and closed in 1918. On 1 May 1935, Mitchell Aboriginal Provisional School opened. It later became Mitchell Aboriginal State School and closed on 19 November 1948.

Bushrangers and floods

The bushrangers Patrick and James Kenniff were captured in 1902 south of Mitchell, after a short stand-off, at a creek once called Back Creek and now known as Arrest Creek. Patrick Kenniff was hanged in 1903 for murdering Constable George Doyle and Albert Dahlke. James Kenniff was released after 12 years in prison and died in 1940.

The Shire of Booringa once had its administrative centre at Mitchell, and since 2008 the town has been part of the Maranoa Region. The March 2010 floods brought the Maranoa River to a peak of 13.4 m at Mitchell, and 25 houses were inundated. In 2012 the town experienced its worst flooding, when a monsoon trough over central and southern Queensland nearly inundated Charleville, 180 km to the west.

What still stands

Heritage-listed sites remain in the town. The Mitchell War Memorial is on Cambridge Street, and the Mitchell railway station on Oxford Street is listed together with a goods shed in Alice Street and the station master's house in Sheffield Street. Mitchell State School's 1914 building at 105 Cambridge Street joined the Queensland Heritage Register in 1994; it was removed as part of approved development, and the listing was cancelled in 2015.

Living in Mitchell

The Warrego Highway runs through Mitchell, 587 kilometres west of Brisbane, 89 kilometres west of Roma and 178 kilometres east of Charleville. The highway forms the town's main street, Cambridge Street. The Maranoa River curves around the north and east of the town before it joins the Balonne River.

The Western railway passes through the district, with a passenger stop at Mitchell railway station. West of the town is Mitchell Airstrip, run by the Maranoa Regional Council and suited to light aircraft; its airport code is MTQ.