The arrival of a five head stamp battery in 1869, led to a subsequent improvement in returns from the quartz reefs providing the miners with the impetus to develop a more permanent township.

There were a number of service industries established including five hotels, saddler, blacksmiths, chemist, baker, assayer, and butcher.

Hugh Ross was identified as a builder in Charters Towers in 1875 where he constructed Acker & Company's building, the Oddfellows' Hall and the Anglican and Presbyterian churches.

[1] The Ravenswood Catholic community became a thriving one with a church, boarding school and convent located in Chapel Street.

[1] In 1885 Fr Flood, first parish priest, began negotiations with the Sisters of Mercy to open a school and convent.

The Ravenswood community again demonstrated their faith in the long term prosperity of their town by supporting Fr Flood's fundraising campaign.

[1] During the second world war students from St Patrick's College, The Strand, Townsville were evacuated to the boarding school at Ravenswood.

[1] The school building was moved to Giru but the convent remained in situ until damaged in a storm and demolished by local residents for its timber.

The church continued to be used, although it was allowed to fall into disrepair, until 1957 when a community fundraising campaign raised £50 for repairs.

[1] In the mid 1980s the Roman Catholic Diocese of Townsville handed over the property to the Dalrymple Shire (now amalgamated into Charters Towers Region).

[1] The Ravenswood Community Church is a rectangular planned building with a gabled corrugated iron roof.

[1] Ravenswood Community Church was listed on the Queensland Heritage Register on 24 September 1999 having satisfied the following criteria.

Ravenswood Community Church, constructed in stages from 1871 by Charters Towers builders, Ross and O'Reilly, is important in demonstrating the periods of prosperity of the Ravenswood gold fields and is evidence of the spread of the Catholic religion in regional Queensland particularly North Queensland.

On a number of occasions the survival of the church has depended on the concern and generosity of the Ravenswood community which has provided ongoing care and maintenance on the building since the 1950s.