Jerilderie - Steel Wings Windmill

Steel Wings Windmill

The Jerilderie Shire Council (and the Shire of Taroom in the central Queensland highlands) have rare windmills of unusual design. Both are situated on National Route 39, which provides a straight run from Victoria to the Queensland tropical coast. The windmill was produced by the Steel Wings Company, in North Sydney between 1907 and 1911 with only six models ever erected. The windmills comprise a steel frame and fan which turns to the wind between a bearing at the bottom and a swivel at the top, all supported by guy-wires. The fully restored windmills, the only two known working examples in the world, are unique because their fan is contained and spins within the fully pivoting frame.

The Jerilderie Steel Wings windmill, built in 1910, was transported by rail from Sydney and then taken by bullock wagon to Goolgumbula Station for Sir Samuel McCaughey. It provided water to the stations homestead, ram sheds and dams along a 43-kilometre (27 mi) channel system. The mill suffered storm damage in 1977, was offered to the town as a historical exhibit and placed in Luke Park in 1979 at the official opening of the Jerilderie Lake. The lake was built to hold excess water from the Billabong Creek which flooded annually.

In 1989, members of Lions, Apex and Jerilderie Shire Council repaired and refurbished the windmill with two people, Clive Langfield and George Cornish (now dec.) spending some 600 hours to bring it to its present working condition, pumping 9 litres (2.4 US gal) per revolution from the Billabong Creek to the Jerilderie Lake using a 15-centimetre (5.9 in) draw plunger with a 48-centimetre (19 in) stroke.

The Jerilderie windmill, the larger of the two stands 17 metres (56 ft) high with a 9-metre (30 ft) fan.