Etheridge railway line
Although construction was delayed by strikes in mid-1908 over the pay rate for railway workers, in February 1909 the line was opened to Einasleigh from Almaden. The Einasleigh copper mine was originally discovered by Richard Daintree in the mid 1860s, but the cost of transporting ore from the site made it uneconomic and it soon closed. The location was lost until the 1890s and a renewed interest in copper on the Etheridge field. A township known as Copperfield was established on the banks of the Copperfield River to service 12 copper mining leases extant by 1899, and this was surveyed as Einasleigh in 1900. The mine was reopened that year by the Einasleigh Freehold Mining Company, in which John Moffat had acquired an interest. By 1901 copper matte from a smelter at Einasleigh was being transported to Almaden by camel train. The coming of the Etheridge Railway in 1909 allowed Einasleigh to boom, and it was the largest centre on the Etheridge between 1907 and 1910. By 1910 six ore trains a week were running from Einasleigh to the Chillagoe smelters, and in 1911 the mine was purchased by the Chillagoe Company. It closed in 1914, and was reopened by the Queensland Government between 1920 and 1922.
Einasleigh Hotel
The "boom" times in Einasleigh did not last long. The First World War (1914–18) interrupted Australian access to overseas mineral markets and led to the closure of mines in the Einasleigh area and elsewhere. One ore train per week ran from Einasleigh to the Chillagoe smelters. This and the occasional livestock train were the only traffic using the Etheridge railway. The district population began to move away as the need for teamsters and rail maintenance crews diminished and by the 1920s Einasleigh Township had all but disappeared. In 1919 the Queensland Government took control of the Etheridge railway along with the Chillagoe Company's assets after the collapse of the company. The Einasleigh mine was re-opened under State ownership, again to supply ore to feed the Chillagoe smelters. This revival in activity was short-lived, the mine closing in 1922. The first mine in north Queensland, it had played an important part in keeping the region's copper mining industry alive by helping to keep the Chillagoe smelters open.