Heritage Day at Stanthorpe Museum

Queensland’s Heritage Festival is celebrated annually with a week-long program of events. Now in its 28th year, this festival is the largest annual celebration of Queensland’s heritage and it plays a key role in fostering an appreciation of our history and cultural identity.
Particularly poignant, the theme for this year is ‘Heritage of Water’, and was decided long before the disastrous floods which have affected so much of the state. Water can also be a friend and its presence was the lifeblood of early settlement in many ways.
The early history of Stanthorpe is woven intrinsically with water. The first settlers were graziers, then followed tin miners who really put the fledgling township on the map. Quart Pot Creek, which meanders through Stanthorpe, was vital to alluvial mining.
The Stanthorpe Museum is the recognised custodian of this heritage, with many artifacts from the mining era, which ended when the price of tin fell in the late 1880s.
On May 15 the Stanthorpe Museum will host Heritage Day, featuring a three-course camp oven dinner at lunchtime with freshly brewed billy tea and damper available all day long.
The admission price of $15 is all-inclusive.
Visitors can explore through the Ballandean Shepherds Hut, see a model tin miner’s sluice and experience many other exhibits which depict the lives, struggles and achievements of Stanthorpe people.
At 11.30am a special tree planting ceremony will honour former museum stalwart Owen Nielsen.
The tree, to be planted at the front of the museum, will symbolise all that Owen cheerfully gave to his friends at the museum and to the community of the Granite Belt through his many years of service.