William established a large homestead on the banks of the Chillagoe Creek in 1888 with the intention of supplying beef to the expanding mining operations of the area.

Full scale operations commenced in 1896 when Moffat instructed 20 men to sink a shaft at Girofla, prepare a dam and construct a smelter site.

[1] As mining operations in the area expanded, John Moffat, and his business partner James Smith Reid, sought to restructure their holdings in an effort to establish more manageable portions and raise capital for infrastructure investment.

The township was moved from its original location opposite the Girofla mine to a newly surveyed site either side of the rail head, and was officially renamed Mungana.

At its peak in 1920 Mungana had six hotels, three stores, bakery, butcher, confectionary shop, drapers, post office, church, school and livery.

[1] Despite a series of financial scandals associated with the parent Chillagoe operation and the temporary closure of its smelters, Mungana continued to develop.

The Mungana Mining Co. installed a pumping plant at Girofla in 1911 that was one of the largest in Queensland at the time and required considerable supporting infrastructure.

It consisted of a beam pump with a 39-foot (12 m) sweep, a tandem compound engine with an 18-foot (5.5 m) long crank shaft and a 9-long-ton (9.1 t) weight fly wheel 18 feet (5.5 m) in diameter.

In October 1901 a domestic servant named Hannah Treacy was murdered by a drunken miner, Richard Henderson, who soon after committed suicide.

A formal cemetery was established approximately two kilometres from the township in the early twentieth century, consisting of both marked and unmarked graves.

[1] Government ownership of the Mungana Mines was to represent the town's civil peak, but also made it the centre of a great political scandal.

They had both been active in the Chillagoe area from 1908 onwards and succeeded in establishing branches in places such as Mungana, when earlier attempts by others had failed.

Questions were being raised about the legality and ethics of the purchase (known as the Mungana affair) and a change of government eventually led to a Royal Commission in 1930 that was critical of Theodore, McCormack, Reid and the Chillagoe Mine Manager, Goddard.

The Chillagoe Smelters still provided a focus for regional mining activities; however by 1943 the dearth of payable ore and the loss of workers to World War II service finally also saw its permanent closure.

The situation grew so desperate that the Brisbane Courier Mail reported on 29 November 1949 that cattle trucked from Mungana to Cairns had been without water for two days and the future of the practice had to be considered.

[1] Commenced in the early twentieth century and located within a gazetted reserve on the northern side of Burke Developmental Road, away from the main township.

The cattle yards have been damaged through termite activity, decay and fire, but the surviving hardwood fencing is still reasonably solid and can be easily read and interpreted.

[1] Located to the south of the Mine and at the base of a steep ridge, this area consists of substantial foundations, a stone wall, slag spoil and domestic dwellings.

The ruined domestic dwelling is located on a hill to the south of the smelter and consists of a stone foundation platform with a thin concrete slab floor.

[1] Located to the east of the Girofla Smelter and adjacent to the southern edge of the modern access road to Red-Dome, this is another large and complex area consisting of both mining and domestic features.

[1] Located to the north of Lady Jane Mine on the other side of the modern road, this site consists of series of features and artefact scatters associated with the early township.

Artefacts consist of ceramics and glass and date from the late nineteenth century to the mid 1930s, possibly indicating continued use of the area for a considerable period after the township moved in 1901.

The pumping plant installed at the Girofla Mine in 1911 was one of the largest of its type in Queensland at the time and represented an important attempt to deal with the ground water issues that plagued the district.

Identifiable areas of archaeological interest include the mining infrastructure foundations and ruins, boilers, railway and tramlines, culverts, bottle dumps, domestic remains, a lime kiln, explosives stores, blasted access roads, a cemetery, a school, wells, a hospital site (including associated artefacts), cattle yards and public venues such as hotels.

[1] The Mungana Archaeological Area has the potential to answer important research questions associated with how the community developed, interacted, traded and survived.

For example, preliminary archaeological analysis demonstrates that although the township of Girofla was officially moved to the current site of Mungana in 1901, artefactual evidence suggests the former continued to be occupied into the 1930s.

[1] The Mungana Archaeological Area has the potential to answer important research questions about the collective experiences of isolated mining communities in far north Queensland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

[1] The Mungana Archaeological Area has additional research potential to reveal important information about Queensland's history, including questions associated with gender, class, demographics, health, industry the labour movement and entertainment.