Anyone who has driven into Mount Isa has seen the mine stacks that tower over the town, in particular the candy-striped copper smelter that is visible from kilometres away.
This year the stack turns 60 and Russell Neville, whose dad was Eric Neville, the civil engineer behind the stack, has reflected on the creation of one of north-west Queensland's most well-known sights.
Eric, his wife Sue, and their family arrived in Mount Isa in 1959, when Eric was given the job of building the new stack by Mount Isa Mines.
Before moving to Mount Isa the family had lived in the nearby town of Mary Kathleen – now abandoned – and before that had lived on Thursday Island, where Eric worked in the pearl trade.
From the ground up
While the stack is referred to mostly as the candy-stripe stack or the copper smelter these days, Mr Neville said as a kid him and his friends just called it the "orange and white stack".
"I mean, it was the biggest one [stack] in that time because there was a silver one next to it which wasn't in use," he said.
The stack was made with 200,000 bricks and cost about a quarter of a millions pounds at the time.
Back then it was the tallest chimney stack to have been built in Australia.
With the stack now dwarfed by taller ones, Mr Neville said he thought his late dad would have loved to see the improvements.
"He was always inspired and was interested to see the developments in any aspect of engineering," he said.
What's with the paint job?
The stack is more than metres metres in diameter at its top.
The build was supervised by American chimney builders Joe and Frank Specht.
Its colour was chosen because it was seen as a hazard for planes.
Mr Neville said at the time having the Americans come to town was a "big deal".
"The two Americans came out and you know, it was 1950 so … they were exotic," he said.
"Then the bricks too, they were put on the inside of the stack to withstands the heat, and had to be imported from Argentina."
Safety in the '50s
The lack of security and safety protocols at the time are plain to see in photographs from the era.
"They were less stringent on the security and safety aspects of construction," Mr Neville said.
"They're up there on the top of the stack, standing up there with no harnesses on."
Mr Neville said 60 years on from the construction of the stack, he was pleased to see it still standing and still a large part of the history of the north-west.
"During [dad's] time the orange and white stacks were the skyline and the distinctive feature of the city," he said.
"It has become an icon and I think that he'd be proud of that."
