Emmaville Mining Museum — Attraction in Emmaville

The historic village of Emmaville in the Glen Innes Highlands is home to the Emmaville Mining Museum, the dream of Mr and Mrs Jack Curnow who ran the Emmaville bakery.

After closing the bakery in 1969, they used the shop to display their vast collection of minerals and photographs.

Their collection was bequeathed to the community in the hope that the town could start a museum.

The local council purchased the old Foley’s Store in Emmaville and volunteers began remodelling the building to house the Curnow collection.

Today, the Museum that houses the renowned Curnow mineral collection is also home to the Jillet, Gilbey, Ellis, Schumacher, Trethewey, Hermann and Maskey collections. In all, there are over 4,000 mineral and gem specimens.

As the collection grew, the Museum expanded. Out back is Foley’s General Store Museum, a replica blacksmith’s shop, an old wood-fired bakery, and a machinery shed filled with old mining equipment.

There’s the interior of a hessian-lined miner’s hut, a collection of over 400 photographs of the old mines, miners, and the Emmaville community, and a beautiful 1,500 bottle collection.

Emmaville When tin was discovered in the area in 1872, it attracted an influx of people. By early in the 20th century, the population was around 7,000, including 2,000 Chinese, who formed a large part of the mining community.

The settlement was initially called Vegetable Creek, because of the fields planted to feed the miners and their families. In 1872 the name of the town was changed to Emmaville to honour the wife of the Governor General, Lady Emma Augustus Loftus.

Emmaville today is a tiny hamlet of a couple of hundred people.

Because the region is one of the world’s richest mineral belts, many people come to Emmaville to fossick for gemstones. Ask the volunteers in the Museum for advice.

You can also explore the ruins of the Ottery Mine a short drive out of town. Originally a tin mine, it became one of the few places to mine and refine arsenic.

When you visit the Museum, you will see a black panther in the miner’s hut. Many visitors are surprised and ask why. Well, a wild black panther was shot in the area in 1902. How it came to be here, nobody knows. There have been additional panther sightings, but none since 1968. If you’re lucky, you might see the elusive Emmavile panther in your travels.

25 kms from Emmaville is Torrington, home to the 30,000 hectare Torrignton State Recreation area, the remarkably human face of Mystery Rock and bushranger...

The Emmaville Mining Museum is just a fabulous place full of the most wonderful examples of rocks and minerals and other historical displays. The entry is a gold coin donation only, which is amazing in itself. We met Ron and Margaret who were the most fantastic people you could ever want in such a museum. They made us feel welcome with big smiles and lots of friendly chatter right from the moment we walked in. We even took in some rocks we weren't sure about and they were only too happy to identify them and give us information about them. Ron is a wealth of info about everything in the museum and has worked very hard to present a worldclass minerals/rocks/historical environment. He happily pointed us to several nearby locations where we could expect to find a variety of gemstones. We went fossicking in and around Glen Innes then just had to call back in again to see Ron and Margaret as we were so interested in seeing the fascinating displays again and wanted to have some of our finds identified. The array of quartz crystals has to be seen to be believed and we learnt so much. We found Ron and the museum to be so inspiring in our quest for fossicking and learning about gemstones especially as we don't have them over in WA. We were so impressed we happily bought some lovely mineral samples and gave more coin donations in appreciation. This museum in a small town is well worth the effort to check out. We loved it and will definitely go back on our next trip over east. Looking forward to it. Congratulations to all involved in this...

This place is a national treasure! Not only does it house an extensive rock and mineral collection (made up of its own and loaned collections), it is also run by some of the nicest people you could hope to meet.

Beyond the items of geological interest, there are many and varied items ranging from local photographs documenting a long period of social history, to old mining equipment. There is a respectful acknowledgement of the local area"s contribution to Australia"s various war efforts and a replica of on old country bakery. You can find a huge range of topics and items on display and the museum is adding extensions to display even more!

We thoroughly enjoyed our visit: both what we saw and the talking with...