Venus State Battery, Gold processing facility in Charters Towers, Australia.
Venus State Battery is a gold processing facility in Millchester with timber frame buildings and corrugated iron coverings. The site contains four ore bins and multiple stamp batteries designed to crush and process minerals extracted from local mines.
The facility was constructed in 1872 and initially operated five stamp batteries, which increased to twenty by the following year. It became one of the earliest operations of its kind established in Queensland.
Newspaper accounts from the era preserved stories of miners working at the facility and the obstacles they faced in their daily operations. These written records offer insight into the challenging work of gold processing during that period.
The site is located on MacDonald Street and has been managed as a heritage property by the National Trust of Queensland since 1975. Visitors can access the grounds on foot and find the location easily by its street address.
A Cornish boiler was repurposed into an elevated water tank and remains in place at the facility today. The original weir on nearby Gladstone Creek still stands as part of the historical infrastructure.
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