[1] The existence of copper in the Leichhardt River area of north western Queensland had been known since Ernest Henry discovered the Great Australia Mine in 1867 at Cloncurry.

Morphett, being drought stricken, in turn sold out to John Moffat of Irvinebank, the most successful mining promoter in Queensland at the time.

[1][3] In 1906-1907 copper averaged £87 a ton on the London market, the highest price for thirty years, and the Cloncurry field grew.

The Great Northern railway was extended west of Richmond in 1905-1906 by the Queensland Government and mines were floated on the Melbourne Stock Exchange.

At Mount Elliott a prospecting shaft had been sunk and on 1 August 1906 a Cornish boiler and winding plant were installed on the site.

However, the Hampden-Mount Elliott Railway Bill was passed by the Queensland Parliament and assented to on 21 April 1908; construction finished in December 1910.

[1] By 1907 the main underlie shaft had been sunk and construction of the smelters was underway using a second-hand water-jacket blast furnace and converters.

Smelting operations in the region were made difficult by the technical and economic problems posed by the deterioration in the grade of ore. Corbould resolved the issue by a process of blending ores with different chemical properties, increasing the throughput capacity of the smelter and by championing the unification of smelting operations in the region.

[1][3] The new smelter was blown in September 1910, a month after the first train arrived, and it ran well, producing 2,040 long tons (2,070 t) of blister copper by the end of the year.

A new furnace with a capacity of 500 long tons (510 t) per day was built, a large amount of second-hand equipment was obtained and the converters were increased in size.

[1][12] After the enlarged furnace was commissioned in June 1917, continuing industrial unrest retarded production which amounted to only 1,000 long tons (1,000 t) of copper that year.

The company decided to close down the smelter in October and reduce the size of the furnace, the largest in Australia, from 6.5 to 5.5 metres (21 to 18 ft).

[1][3] Profitable copper-gold ore bodies were recently proved at depth beneath the Mount Elliott smelter and old underground workings by Cyprus Gold Australia Pty Ltd.

A decline tunnel portal, ore and overburden dumps now occupy a large area of the Maggie Creek valley south-west of the smelter which was formerly the site of early miner's camps.

Surrounding sheep and cattle stations, however, meant that meat was available cheaply and vegetables grown in the area were delivered to the township by horse and cart.

[15] There was also an aerated water manufacturer, three stores, four fruiterers, a butcher, baker, saddler, garage, police, hospital, banks, post office (officially from 1906 to 1928, then unofficially until 1975) and a railway station.

Within this basin lay the powerhouse and boiler house machinery beds, ore tunnel, beehive kiln, the lower condenser area and railway embankments.

[1] The Selwyn Township is located at the northern end of a valley running south to Mount Elliott Smelter which is about 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) distant.

All buildings have been removed and the evidence of the township now comprises garden plots, cement surfaces and corrugated iron water tanks.

The grave sites include three women, a returned Anzac accidentally killed in the mine, a man who died of injuries in the local hospital, and a miner from Mount Cobalt who was buried in 1925 after Selwyn was almost deserted.

[1][18] Mount Elliott Mining Complex was listed on the Queensland Heritage Register on 16 September 2011 having satisfied the following criteria.

[1] The Mount Elliott Mining Complex, incorporating the remnants of the Mount Elliott Mine, Smelter, a range of associated infrastructure, scattered archaeological artefacts, the abandoned town of Selwyn and its associated cemetery, has the potential to provide important information on aspects of Queensland's history particularly early copper smelter practices and technologies, the full range of activities peripheral to those base operations and, importantly, the people who lived and worked in this complex historic mining landscape.

[1] Archaeological investigations within the Mount Elliott Mining Complex have potential to reveal specific details about the function and use of the area that complement and augment archival records.