by Linda Venn
The construction of the Mount Spec Road as a Great Depression unemployment relief project is well-known and is one of several reasons that the Road was given State heritage listing on 10th November 2008. Surveying of the road began in 1928-1929 and was completed in early 1931 as construction commenced. During the five years it took to build a trafficable track to within a kilometre of the newly gazetted township of Paluma (possibly ‘Windy Corner’), unemployed men worked on short-term rotations under the supervision of a small permanent staff from the Main Roads Board (later Commission). As far as I can ascertain, there were four main camps along the length of the road, with many smaller camps in between, adjacent to specific parts of the project like an arched culvert. While construction obviously started at the bottom of the range near the railway station at Moongabulla, it leap-frogged these smaller, time-consuming projects. The masonry arch bridge at Little Crystal Creek, for example, took months to complete, with access to works above the gorge via a temporary timber bridge.
When I had the pleasure several times of meeting and interviewing Linda McClelland, she detailed some memories of each of the four major camps. By the time the road reached Cloudy Clearing (Paluma), Wilfred and Linda McClelland had five children living in tents or later, a ‘tent house’ located where 31 Lennox Crescent is today. If you ever visit Mount Isa, one such tent house is preserved there as a heritage building.
Linda McClelland remembered each main camp for the significant events that took place there. Camp No. 1 was roughly near the old ‘quarry’ at the very bottom of the range itself. Camp No 1 had a payroll hold-up!
On Wednesday 9 December 1931, Pay Clerk Michael Killoran and driver Harry Stewart drove the Model T Ford utility from the camp to Moongabulla railway siding, where they collected the payroll and its police escort Constable Len O’Brien. As the men working on the road were about to be stood down for the Christmas season, the payroll was almost four hundred pounds (£391 19s 5d). In the Great Depression, this was a considerable sum of money, and all in cash.
On their journey back towards Camp No. 1 at the base of the range, they found the track blocked by a felled tree. This was in an area of ti-tree swamp that Linda called ‘Boggy Hollow’. Without knowing exactly where ‘Boggy Hollow’ was, I lean towards it being the patch of ti-trees opposite the Ponderosa Road intersection. I shall let the Townsville Daily Bulletin, 10 December 1931 tell the beginning of the story.
The party got out…to remove the obstacle and just as they were about to do so, a voice called on them, “Put up your hands.” The party then looked around to see where the strange voice had come from, and observed a man partly concealed behind some rocks and bushes, with a shot gun pointed at them. As they demurred in complying with his peremptory demand, he fired two shots at them in their direction. One of the pellets struck Mr. Killoran just above the temple, but no injury resulted. The offender then made off into the bush, but Constable O’Brien fired some shots at the retreating figure without effect.