Discover Cue • History & Heritage

Historical
Photograph Collection

Hundreds of photographs. Two storeys. More than a century of Cue stories.

Step inside the Shire Office and discover an extraordinary photographic record of the people, streets, mines, businesses, expeditions and everyday life that shaped Cue and the Murchison.

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See Cue differently

The faces behind the buildings

Cue's heritage buildings are impressive. The photograph collection shows you the people who once filled them.

Across two storeys of the Shire of Cue Office are hundreds of historic photographs documenting the district through generations of change.

They capture streets before bitumen, miners and prospectors, families, shopkeepers, sporting groups, transport, buildings, expeditions and the ordinary moments that rarely survive in written histories.

Not a single gallery room

History fills the building

The collection is part of the experience of visiting Cue's historic Shire Office.

Photographs line hallways and rooms across two storeys, so exploring the collection feels less like walking through a conventional museum and more like stepping through Cue's memory.

Some images show buildings that still stand only metres away. Others preserve people, businesses and places that have disappeared completely.

Preserving Cue's memory

A collection built by the community

The collection itself has become part of Cue's heritage story.

The Historical Photograph Collection was assembled and researched by Cue locals between 1991 and 1997, with Mrs Gwen Price playing a particularly important role in bringing the collection together.

Residents, former residents and their families donated many additional photographs, helping preserve not only major events but the personal stories of the district.

Images from other historical collections and institutions also helped build the extraordinary visual record that can be seen in Cue today.

Austin Street • 1907

Cue enters the motor age

The collection doesn't just record mines and grand buildings. It captures the changing technology, businesses and everyday life of the town.

Armstrong Cycles and Motors on Austin Street Cue in 1907
Armstrong Cycles & Motors, Austin Street, Cue, 1907.

Look closely and the photograph is full of clues about a town adapting to a new century.

Two early motor vehicles sit outside Armstrong's business while bicycles, equipment, shop signage, clothing and the people themselves capture a moment when motor transport was beginning to transform life in remote Western Australia.

It is these details that make the collection worth slowing down for. A single photograph can reveal an entire chapter of Cue's social and commercial history.

Then & now
Walk back outside and you're standing on the same Austin Street.
Look closely

Hundreds of different stories

People
Families, workers, children, community groups, sporting teams and residents whose lives made Cue.
Streets & Businesses
Austin Street, shops, hotels, workshops, banks and businesses through generations of change.
Mining & Goldfields
Prospectors, mines, machinery, Day Dawn, Big Bell and the industries that transformed the district.
Transport & Expeditions
Horses, camel teams, bicycles, early motor vehicles and expeditions heading into remote Western Australia.
One photograph. A much bigger story.

The Canning expedition at Day Dawn

Some photographs connect this small Murchison town with stories known across Australia.

Canning expedition leaving Day Dawn for the Kimberley on 17 March 1908
Canning expedition leaving Day Dawn for the Kimberley, 17 March 1908.

Long before today's four-wheel-drives head for Well 1, expedition parties were preparing to travel north from the Cue district.

Alfred Canning's survey party departed Day Dawn in 1906. This surviving photograph records another expedition leaving Day Dawn for the Kimberley on 17 March 1908.

It is exactly the kind of connection the collection reveals — one image opening a window onto a much larger chapter of Western Australian history.

Heading north?
Before Well 1,
there was Day Dawn.
Discover the Day Dawn story →
Life on the edge of distance

Before highways and road trains

Distance shaped almost every part of life in the early Murchison.

Historic photographs record horse teams, camel trains and heavily loaded wagons moving people, supplies and equipment through country where modern transport infrastructure simply did not exist.

Images like these turn the distances on today's road signs into something much easier to understand.

Historic camel team in the Cue district
See it for yourself

Visit the Historical Photograph Collection

Give yourself time. There are hundreds of photographs spread across two storeys and plenty of details worth stopping for.

Once you've explored the collection, walk back outside onto Austin Street and compare the historic photographs with the Cue that survives today.

Location
Shire of Cue Office
73 Austin Street
Cue WA 6640
Get Directions
The photographs are only the beginning

Now go and find the places

Historic Buildings → Day Dawn → Big Bell → Cue Heritage Trail →