Steam Traction Engine - Stockfoto

The OK Mine and Smelter is important in demonstrating the establishment and development of copper mining in North Queensland, and this Aveling and Porter steam traction engine is a monument to ore transporting problems and costs. The abandoned copper mine site demonstrates the layout and processes of a mid-sized copper smelter, and contains a rare large, intact and very symmetrical slag dump. As a ruin the OK Mine and Smelter, has considerable aesthetic significance. The OK Copper Mines Development Syndicate NL, which established and developed the mine and smelter in the early 1900s, is significant in Queensland's history as the first North Queensland copper company to pay a dividend, due to its practical equating of technical requirements and expenditure on smelters and mine equipment against the known reserves of ore.100 years after the mine-site was abandoned this rusted steam traction engine is the largest remaining mine transport equipment left at this ruin.