woolscour

Group of men around sheep yards in the Quilpie area ca. 1910

from State Library of Queensland

• Vesna Verencevic said:

  Thompson and Hulse, shearing contractors, took up a lease of land in 1935 and built a wool scour. Mark A Hulse J. P. originally from England - "The Home" - operated the business. Mark lived with his wife and family in Jaburi Street Quilpie. The wool scour used the water from the bore sunk in 1933, to wash the wool. The scour provided off-season employment for Quilpie shearers. During World War 2 the large wool scour shed was used as a training center by the Quilpie Section of the Volunteer Defence Force. The site of the wool scour was near the junction of the present-day airfield runways. The sinking of the dam by the bullock team, the transporting to this site of the steam engine by camel train, the collection of heavy equipment such as ships tanks, wash boxes, and a centrifugal dryer, and the use of steam power before electricity came to Quilpie, is a measure of the ingenuity and enterprise of our forebears. Source: monumentaustralia.org.au/themes/landscape/settlement/disp...