Andrew Ball (Townsville pioneer)

Ball, accompanied by Mark Watt Reid and two Aboriginal stockmen, set out in April 1864 and eventually found the mouth of what later was called the Ross River.

Lying beneath the huge pink granite outcrop of Castle Hill, the location reminded Ball of Castletown, the capital of the Isle of Man, and that was what he called the place.

The Exchange had been erected in 1869 by Edward Head and was made the terminus for the Ravenswood coach service in 1870, but it was the popular Rose O'Neill who improved the hotel's reputation and nearly doubled its size in the mid-1870s.

Ball was charming and widely known, with business interests both in Townsville and on the goldfields (Ravenswood and Charters Towers), and together, he and Rose developed a large and loyal cliental at the Exchange.

On this property Rose and Andrew Ball erected Rosebank, a large timber residence picturesquely situated overlooking a small lagoon and creek (now filled in and part of Mindham Park).

[2] On Sunday 1 November 1964, a monument commemorating the "100th Anniversary of Settlement in Townsville" was unveiled on The Strand, with particular mention made of four men: Robert Towns, Andrew Ball, Mark Watt Reid and John Melton Black.