American connections with the development of the Charters Towers goldfield are evident today in the Zara Clark National Trust Museum , filled with a dazzling array of relics from the past . One surprising exhibit is the 1902 Henry Disston and Sons , Philadelphia , price list .
Miners and fortune seekers from all over the world flooded into the area in the goldrush ; there is a glimmer of Americana in claims with names like Washington and Mexico . Much heavy equipment came from overseas, including California.
Rich ore samples and a gold stamper from Charters Towers featured in the London Colonial and India Exhibition of 1886 and caused a flurry of investment .
America had a strong influence on Charters Towers during WWll. In l942 , the USAAF 3rd Bomb Group used the newly constructed aerodrome at Corinda for raids on New Guinea . The American military took over St. Gabriel's School as a hospital . The 51 metre chimney atop Towers Hill was destroyed at the request of the USAAF.
Other buildings were taken over during the war , air raid shelters built in Gill Street.
The museum has a display of wartime sheet music ,including ones with an obvious American title or artist , Bing Crosby for example .
An ongoing museum project is the restoration of an old Chevrolet , below , other items of interest in the extensive collection visible.
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In 1962 a seismograph station built inside a mining adit in Towers Hill for the University of Queensland was re-equipped , moved to a former RAAF Ordinance Depot as part of the United States program to install ultra-sensitive instruments .
