Place: Station Records - Strathmore Station, Collinsville, 4804
Summary
The property was originally taken up by the partnership of Sellheim and Touissant in 1861. It later passed to the Cunningham family, pioneer pastoralists of Burdekin Downs station, and Strathmore has remained in the hands of that family to the present. Strathmore station produces beef cattle and is well known for its high quality thoroughbred horses. The present owner Mr Edward Cunningham holds a considerable collection of records relating to Strathmore and to the history of his family. The latter includes records of the Scartwater Trust, an organization initiated by the late Arthur Cunningham in 1918, to provide aid for north Queensland servicemen and their families, through the proceeds of a specially established pastoral operation: Scartwater station.
Manuscript, 'The Pioneering of the River Burdekin' by Michael W. Cunningham, June 1895, an account of exploration by his brother Edward Cunningham and party, in 1861.
Diary of Archibald MacMillan, 1866, Archibald MacMillan was the first government employed Northern Road Engineer; the diary covers his pioneering survey work in the Bowen and Townsville hinterland. He later settled on the land in the lower Burdekin and married into the Cunningham family.
Copy of the original diary, which is held by Mr A. MacMillan, Hill End, Warwick.
Station records include: Strathmore Station letterbooks, from 1890s.
Horse books, 1889-present.
Photographs, several collections dating from 1900; covering Cunningham family, station scenes, local community, Bowen etc.
The Story of Scartwater, private printing, 1956, a history of the Scartwater Trust, illustrated.