[1] The Quartz Hill Coach Change Station was a product of the development of pastoralism and the discovery of gold, tin, and copper in North Queensland.

The topographical feature of Quartz Hill is located on the east bank of Elizabeth Creek, about 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) downstream (northwest) from Mount Surprise.

Ore was excavated and carted in bullock drays to Townsville, but despite good returns, the costly freight made the mine unprofitable.

The overland telegraph from Cardwell to Normanton reached Junction Creek, south of Mount Surprise Station, in 1871, and Ezra Firth supplied meat to the small settlement that developed there.

[1] An 1886 census map of the Etheridge District shows a road from Georgetown passing through Brooklands Station, and crossing Elizabeth Creek near Quartz Hill.

[1] The change station at Elizabeth Creek near Quartz Hill appears to have been established in 1888 to service the new Cobb & Co. route between Georgetown and Herberton.

Alf Hutson was granted a Victualler's License in mid 1889 (Georgetown district), and he is listed at Quartz Hill in the February 1890 Queensland Government Gazette.

A photograph in The North Queensland Register in 1905 shows two buildings, two local horse-buggy teams, and one bicycle, at Quartz Hill, "Where the Georgetown and Almaden Coaches meet weekly".

The potential route passed through Quartz Creek, but instead the Etheridge railway line was constructed further south, through Mount Surprise and Einasleigh, terminating at Forsayth (previously Charleston).

[1] In January 1907 Cobb and Co sold its interest in the Almaden to Georgetown run to JS Love, and John Dutton died the following month, aged 49.

A map in the 1908 Annual Report of the Department of Mines still shows a hotel at Quartz Hill, and Bridget Dutton was the licensee for the year ending June 1908.

Apart from the trees alongside the creek bed, the site is sparsely vegetated, and the bare soil is scattered with basalt stones.

[1] When the main road from Mount Surprise turns west towards the O'Briens Creek Gemfields, a secondary track continues northwest, and passes close to the four graves in the cemetery.

[1] To the northeast of the hotel foundations is a three-sided linear formation of stones, and to the north of this is a cleared area of about 30 by 20 metres (98 by 66 ft).

East of the hotel, near the creek, is a large artefact scatter, mostly of green beer bottles with some tin, spread over an area of about 5 by 15 metres (16 by 49 ft).

[1] Quartz Hill Coach Change Station Site and Cemetery was listed on the Queensland Heritage Register on 4 July 2006 having satisfied the following criteria.

The exploitation of the Etheridge Goldfield led to the 1888 development of a Cobb and Co coach route from Herberton, and later Almaden, to Georgetown, with an overnight stop at Quartz Hill.

The building foundation remnants at Quartz Hill, along with a bottle dump, evidence of the coach road, and a small cemetery, mark the location of an important early transport route in Northern Queensland, and demonstrate the functional arrangement of a class of places that, due to changes in technology, is no longer in use.

The remains of the Coach Change Station have the potential to provide new information about construction methods in rural North Queensland during the late nineteenth century.

Analysis of the Change Station's surviving infrastructure, including the building foundation remnants, bottle dump, evidence of the coach road, and a small cemetery, and the spatial arrangement of its components (including the proximity of this remnant evidence to water), would also aid understanding in how late 19th century and early 20th century coach change stations functioned, and how people lived and worked in these places.