Before it was the North Queensland Register, the Charters Towers-based paper was known as the Northern Mining Register, which began on March 4, 1891. It was published on a Wednesday back then with “well-known mining scientists” engaged to supply columns while steps had been taken to appoint “reliable correspondents in all centres of population in the north” to report on mining and pastoral topics. It later went on to incorporate the North Queensland Herald too.

We may not have correspondents in every northern town, but our small but mighty team of journalists have a passion for this masthead that stretches to the corners of the state. Places and faces are the things that drive our paper today. From the bush poetry gathering in Mt Coolon, to the Longreach Show, the Mareeba cattle sale, bull sales in The Towers, the Croydon Poddy Dodgers event, Julia Creek’s Dirt and Dust Festival, the Mount Isa Rodeo and every other dog fight or school sports day in between – if it happened north of Rockhampton it was fit to print.

Add to this the character pieces, often stumbled upon while in a location for another purpose, and the Register really is a must-read. It is proof that a newspaper dedicated to the challenges, triumphs and milestones of North Queensland is just as valuable now as it was in the 1890s.