The stone memorial was designed and produced by Melrose and Fenwick of Mackay and honours the 16 local men who fell in the First World War.

The town became the main centre of the Pioneer Valley hinterland and by the 1920s was the third largest township (after Mackay and Sarina) in the region.

The word "cenotaph", commonly applied to war memorials at the time, literally means "empty tomb".

Many memorials honour all who served from a locality, not just the dead, providing valuable evidence of community involvement in the war.

[1] Australian war memorials are also valuable evidence of imperial and national loyalties, at the time, not seen as conflicting; the skills of local stonemasons, metalworkers and architects; and of popular taste.

[1] Many of the First World War monuments have been updated to record local involvement in later conflicts, and some have fallen victim to unsympathetic re-location and repair.

It was the most popular choice of communities responsible for erecting the memorials, embodying the Anzac spirit and representing the qualities of the ideal Australian: loyalty, courage, youth, innocence and masculinity.

The digger was a phenomenon peculiar to Queensland, perhaps due to the fact that other states had followed Britain's lead and established Advisory Boards made up of architects and artists, prior to the erection of war memorials.

The digger statue was not highly regarded by artists and architects who were involved in the design of relatively few Queensland memorials.

[1] Melrose and Fenwick the makers of the Finch Hatton memorial, were a monumental masonry firm established in Townsville in c. 1896.

The lower part consists of a recessed square section with small barley twist columns at each corner.

[1] Finch Hatton War Memorial was listed on the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992 having satisfied the following criteria.

War Memorials are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history as they are representative of a recurrent theme that involved most communities throughout the state.

[1] The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history.